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LECTURES ON 
THE RELIGION OF THE SEMITES 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE 
JEWISH CHURCH | 


A COURSE OF LECTURES ON BIBLICAL CRITICISM 
Second Edition, Revised and much Enlarged 


THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL 


AND THEIR PLACE IN HISTORY TO THE CLOSE OF 
THE EIGHTH CENTURY B.C. 


Second Edition 
WITH INTRODUCTION AND ADDITIONAL NOTES BY 
THE Rev. Ty. Re CHEYNEL Nia 


ORIEL PROFESSOR OF THE INTERPRETATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 
AT OXFORD, CANON OF ROCHESTER 


KINSHIP AND MARRIAGE IN 
EARLY ARABIA 


NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE 
AUTHOR, AND BY 


PROFESSOR IGNAZ GOLDZIHER, Budapest 
Epitep By STANLEY A. COOK, Lirr.D. [Out of Print 


THE LIFE AND LECTURES OF 
W. ROBERTSON SMITH 


BY 


J. SUTHERLAND BLACK & GEORGE CHRYSTAL 


Vol. I. Tue LIFE. [Out of Print 
Vol. If. THE LECTURES. [Out of Print 


Prorrssor WILLIAM ROBERTSON SMITH (about 1891) 


From a photograph by the late A. Dew Smith 


LECTURES ON 
‘THE RELIGION OF 
THE SEMITES 


THE FUNDAMENTAL INSTITUTIONS 


BY THE LATE 
WILLIAM ROBERTSON SMITH, M.A., LL.D. 


R THOMAS ADAM 


THIRD EDITION 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND ADDITIONAL NOTES 
BY 
STANLEY A. COOK, Lirt.D. 
FELLOW OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
UNIVERSITY LECTURER IN HEBREW AND ARAMAIC 


NEW YORK 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
LONDON: A. © C. BLACK LTD. 
1927 


‘oF 


Printed in Great Britain ‘ 


ATM QD is 


OL AOA so. a 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION : 4 A : é ix 
PREFACE TO THE First Epririon 4 ; . ; . xiii 
Note TO THE SECOND EpITION . : ' ? : le ab ¢ 
List oF ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY . : 2 . xxi 
INTRODUCTION p 3 , F 4 t . XXVii 
LECTURE I 
INTRODUCTION: THE SUBJECT AND THE METHOD oF ENQUIRY . 1 
LECTURE II 
THE NATURE OF THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY, AND THE RELATION 
OF THE GODS TO THEIR WORSHIPPERS : : 28 
LECTURE III 
THE RELATIONS OF THE Gops To NATURAL THINGS—HoLy PLAacEs 
—THE JINN . : - i . $ ‘ 84. 
LECTURE IV 
Hoty PLAcEs IN THEIR RELATION TO MAn . : : ae 
, LECTURE V 
SANCTUARIES, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL—HoLy WATERS, TREES, 
4 : . 165 


CAVES, AND STONES . : : 


LECTURE VI 


SACRIFICE—PRELIMINARY SURVEY : ‘ : : aie Bs 


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PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 


THE continuous demand for the “ Religion of the Semites”’ 
enduced the publishers, when the necessity for another reprint 
drew near, to consider the possibility of a new edition. Many 
years have passed since the second edition, revised by Robertson 
Smith himself—the last of his labours—was seen through the 
press by his friend and subsequent biographer, the late Dr. John 
Sutherland Black (1894). But for nearly three decades con- 
tinental scholars have had, in Sttibe’s German translation, what 
is in several respects virtually a new edition ; and for this and 
other reasons a mere reprint seemed undesirable. Needless to 
say, a work that in its day was regarded as epoch-making for 
the powerful stumulus it gave to the study of Semitic religion, 
and indeed of religion in general, could be revised only by its 
author. It touched upon so many delicate and controversial 
subjects, and the treatment was so inciswe and characteristie, 
that what Robertson Smith thought and wrote must remain 
unchanged. Accordingly, apart from the correction of a few 
trifling misprints, the text has been left unaltered. In the foot- 
notes references to various classical works (by Frazer, Well- 
hausen, and others) have been tacitly brought up to date, and a 
few new references added, with sundry other minor changes that 
could be made on the plates. 

Besides this, the present edition contains a number of new 
notes to which the attention of readers 1s drawn by asterisks 
in the margin of the text. For these and for the Introduction I 


1X 


5 nih PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 


am wholly responsible. Naturally, the notes could have been 
enlarged and multiplied. What has been done was suggested 
(1) by Robertson Smith’s MS. notes in his copies of the first 
edition both of this work and of Wellhausen’s great ‘‘ Reste 
Arabischen Heidentums,”’ now in the library of Christ's College, 
Cambridge}; (2) by the additions in the German translation ? ; 
(3) by the work of Baudissin, Frazer, Lagrange, and others 
since 1894; and (4) by what I conceive to be the trend of 
Robertson Smuth’s work. 

Criticism, since his day, has forced an entire reconsideration 
of his arguments and theories, and many of the topics with 
which he deals now appear in another light. This fact has. 
shaped the Introduction and the Notes. Robertson Smith has 
often been regarded as the founder of the modern Comparative 
Study of Religion—he was, I venture to think, the founder of 
what I would call the Science and Theory of Religion. He 
opened up in a new way questions of religion and magic ; of 
ritual, theology, and myth ; of personality, human and divine ; 
of sin and atonement ; of sacramentalism, tmmanence, and 
transcendence ; and even of production and property. Whereas 
theologians naturally discuss such subjects as these within the 
limits of Christan theology, Robertson Smith went farther 
afield, to the most essential ideas, and those not of Christianity 
alone. Western thought is throughout indebted to Christianity 
and to Greek and Roman civilization ; Robertson Smith went 
down deeper, to the more primitive modes of thought of mankind. 
His temperament and lus profound personal faith, coupled 
with marvellous erudition, gave him an insight into the funda- 


1A certain amount of Robertson Smith’s unpublished material was 
utilized in the Encyclopedia Biblica. 

2 R. Stiibe, Die Religion der Semiten, with preface by E. Kautzsch ; 
Freiburg i. B. 1899. This edition, with thirteen illustrations, modifies 
the “ lecture’ form and expands numerous references and citations ; it 
has various additions and a few omissions. A Comparative Table of 
Pagination will be found at the end of this volume (p. 693). 


‘PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION xl 


mental theories of Religion which, it seems safe to affirm, has 
never been surpassed. 

It would be difficult, of not impossible, to find elsewhere so 
stumulating an approach to the serious study of Religion ; and 
of enthusiastic disciples have sometimes gone too far and 
wandered from the track he blazed, there is no doubt that his 
critics have not always understood either the man himself, or 
the problems of Religion as they presented themselves to him. 
It must, indeed, be frankly admitted that some of his arguments 
now appear too difficult, and are sometimes unnecessary for his 
position as a whole ; but no less frankly may the belief be ex- 
pressed that his position is far more significant than has often 
been thought, and that he has much to offer those who at the 
present day are interested in religious problems. It is with such 
convictions as these that the Introduction and Notes have been 
prepared. 

In this task I have to express grateful thanks to many for 
advice and help, including Prof. A. A. Bevan (especially for 
the notes signed with his initials), Sir James Frazer (for the 
references on p. xl n.), Dr. Alan Gardner and Prof. Eric Peet 
(on some Egyptological points), Prof. Halliday (on some pownts 
of Greek religion), Mr. W. T. Vesey (for the information on 
p. 519 n. 1), Dr. A. S. Tritton, and Dr. and Mrs. Selagman. 
My indebtedness to the works of Sttibe (viz. the German trans- 
lation), Baudissin, Durkheim, Lagrange, G. F. Moore, Wester- 
marck, and very many others, will be evident in the course of 
the notes. 

The reproduction, after all these years, of a photograph of 
Robertson Smith will, it is hoped, gratify those to whom he is 
stall more than a name.! To me he and his work have been an 
unfailing inspiration since 1894-5, when I dimly began to 
feel that the “ Religion of the Semites’’ revealed a new world 


1 The original hangs in the Combination Room of Christ’s College. 


Xil PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 


to be explored. Years of exploration have only convinced me 
that the study of Religion along the lines he laid down is destined 
in the future to inaugurate a new era in the history of religious 
thought ; and if in this tribute to his memory an enthusiastrc 
disciple has strayed from the path, the fault 1s not the master’s. 


STANLEY A. COOK. 


CAMBRIDGE, August 1927. 


PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 


—_——_——— 

In April 1887 I was invited by the trustees of the Burnett 
Fund to deliver three courses of lectures at Aberdeen, in 
the three years from October 1888 to October 1891, on 
“The primitive religions of the Semitic peoples, viewed in 
relation to other ancient religions, and to the spiritual 
religion of the Old Testament and of Christianity.” I gladly 
accepted this invitation; for the subject proposed had 
interested me for many years, and it seemed to me possible 
to treat it in a way that would not be uninteresting to the 
members of my old University, in whose hall the Burnett 
Lectures are delivered, and to the wider public to whom 
the gates of Marischal College are opened on the occasion. 
In years gone by, when I was called upon to defend 
before the courts of my Church the rights of historical 
research, as applied to the Old Testament, I had reason to 
acknowledge with gratitude the fairness and independence 
of judgment which my fellow-townsmen of Aberdeen 
brought to the discussion of questions which in most 
countries are held to be reserved for the learned, and to 
be merely disturbing to the piety of the ordinary layman; 
and I was glad to have the opportunity of commending to 
the notice of a public so impartial and so intelligent the 
study of a branch of comparative religion which, as I 
venture to think, is indispensable to the future progress of 


Biblical research. 
xiii 


XIV PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 


In Scotland, at least, no words need be wasted to 
prove that a right understanding of the religion of the 
Old Testament is the only way to a right understanding 
of the Christian faith; but it is not so fully recognised, 
except in the circle of professed scholars, that the doctrines . 
and ordinances of the Old Testament cannot be thoroughly 
comprehended until they are put into comparison with the 
religions of the nations akin to the Israelites. The value 
of comparative studies for the study of the religion of the 
Bible was brought out very clearly, two hundred years ago, 
by one of the greatest of English theologians, Dr. John 
Spencer, Master of Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, 
whose Latin work on the ritual laws of the Hebrews may 
justly be said to have laid the foundations of the science 
of Comparative Religion, and in its special subject, in spite 
of certain defects that could hardly have been avoided at 
the time when it was composed, still remains by far the 
most important book on the religious antiquities of the 
Hebrews. But Spencer was so much before his time that 
his work was not followed up; it is often ignored by 
professed students of the Old Testament, and has hardly 
- exercised any influence on the current ideas which are 
the common property of educated men interested in the 
Bible. 

In modern times Comparative Religion has become in 
some degree a popular subject, and in our own country 
has been treated from various points of view by men of 
eminence who have the ear of the public; but nothing 
considerable has been done since Spencer’s time, either in 
England or on the Continent, whether in learned or in 
popular form, towards a systematic comparison of the 
religion of the Hebrews, as a whole, with the beliefs and 
ritual practices of the other Semitic peoples. In matters 
of detail valuable work has been done; but this work hag 


PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION XV 
been too special, and for the most part too technical, to 
help the circle to whom the Burnett Lectures are addressed , 
which I take to be a circle of cultivated and thinking men 
and women who have no special acquaintance with Semitic 
lore, but are interested in everything that throws light on 
their own religion, and are prepared to follow a sustained 
or even a severe argument, if the speaker on his part will 
remember that historical research can always be made 
intelligible to thinking people, when it is set forth with 
orderly method and in plain language. 

There is a particular reason why some attempt in this 
direction should be made now. The first conditions of an 
effective comparison of Hebrew religion, as a whole, with 
the religion of the other Semites, were lacking so long as 
the historical order of the Old Testament documents, and 
especially of the documents of which the Pentateuch is 
made up, was unascertained or wrongly apprehended ; 
but, thanks to the labours of a series of scholars (of 
whom it is sufficient to name Kuenen and Wellhausen, 
as the men whose acumen and research have carried 
this inquiry to a point where nothing of vital importance 
for the historical study of the Old Testament religion 
still remains uncertain), the growth of the Old Testament 
religion can now be followed from stage to stage, in a 
way that is hardly possible with any other religion of 
antiquity. And so it is now not only possible, but 
most necessary for further progress, to make a fair com- 
parison between Hebrew religion in its various stages 
and the religions of the races with which the Hebrews 
were cognate by natural descent, and with which also they 
were historically in constant touch. 

The plan which I have framed for my guidance in 
carrying out the desires of the Burnett trustees is ex- 
plained in the first lecture. JI begin with the institutions 


Xv1 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 


of religion, and in the present series I discuss those 
institutions which may be called fundamental, particularly 
that of sacrifice, to which fully one half of the volume 
is devoted. It will readily be understood that, in the 
course of the argument, I have found it convenient to 
take up a good many things that are not fundamental, at 
the place where they could most naturally be explained ; 
and, on the other hand, I daresay that students of the 
subject may sometimes be disposed to regard as funda- 
mental certain matters which I have been compelled to 
defer. But on the whole I trust that the present volume 
will be found to justify its title, and to contain a fairly 
adequate analysis of the first principles of Semitic worship. 
It would indeed have been in some respects more satis- 
factory to myself to defer the publication of the first 
series of lectures till I could complete the whole subject 
of institutions, derivative as well as primary. But it 
seemed due to the hearers who may desire to attend the 
second series of lectures, to let them have before them in 
print the arguments and conclusions from which that 
series must start; and also, in a matter of this sort, when 
one has put forth a considerable number of new ideas, the 
value of which must be tested by criticism, one is anxious 
to have the judgment of scholars on the first part of one’s 
work before going on to further developments. 

I may explain that the lectures, as now printed, are 
considerably expanded from the form in which they were 
delivered; and that only nine lectures of the eleven were 
read in Aberdeen, the last two having been added to 
complete the discussion of sacrificial ritual. 

In dealing with the multiplicity of scattered evidences 
on which the argument rests, I have derived great assist- 
ance from the researches of a number of scholars, to whom 
acknowledgment is made in the proper places. For Arabia 


PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xvi 


I have been able to refer throughout to my friend 
Wellhausen’s excellent volume, Reste arabischen Heiden- 
thumes (Berl. 1887), in which the extant material for this 
branch of Semitic heathenism is fully brought together, 
and criticised with the author’s well-known acumen. For 
the other parts of Semitic heathenism there is no standard 
exposition of a systematic kind that can be referred to 
in the same way. In this country Movers’s book on 
Phenician religion is often regarded as a ‘standard 
authority for the heathenism of the Northern Semites ; 
but, with all its learning, it is a very unsafe guide, and 
does not supersede even so old a book as Selden, De diis 
Syris. | 

In analysing the origin of ritual institutions, I have 
often had occasion to consult analogies in the usages of 
early peoples beyond the Semitic field. In this part of 
the work I have had invaluable assistance from my friend, 
Mr. J. G. Frazer, who has given me free access to his 
unpublished collections on the superstitions and religious 
observances of primitive nations in all parts of the globe. 
I have sometimes referred to him by name, in the course 
of the book, but these references convey but an imperfect 
idea of my obligations to his learning and _ intimate 
familiarity with primitive habits of thought. In this 
connection I would also desire to make special acknow- 
ledgment of the value, to students of Semitic ritual and 
usage, of the comparative studies of Dr. Wilken of Leyden; 
which I mention in this place, because Dutch work is too 
apt to be overlooked in England. 

In transcribing Oriental words, I have distinguished the 
emphatic consonants, so far as seemed necessary to preclude 
ambiguities, by the usual device of putting dots under the 
English letters that come nearest to them in sound. But 
aaa of & (p) I write c, following a precedent set by 


XVill PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 


eminent French Orientalists. In Eastern words both ¢ and 
g are always to be pronounced hard. But where there is 
a conventional English form for a word I retain it; thus 
I write “Caaba,” not “Ka‘ba;” “Caliph,” not “ Khalifa ” ; 
“Jehovah,” not “Yahveh” or “ Tahwé.”? As regards the 
references in the notes, it may be useful to mention that 
CIS. means the Paris Corpus Inseriptionem Semiticarum, 
and ZDMG. the Zeitschrift of the German Oriental Society ; 
that when Wellhausen is cited, without reference to the 
title of a book, his work on Arabian Heathenism is meant; 
and that Kinship means my book on Kinship and Marriage 
im Early Arabia (Cambridge, University Press, 1885).? 

Finally, I have to express my thanks to my friend, Mr. 
J. S. Black, who has kindly read the whole book in proof, 
and made many valuable suggestions. 


W. RoBERTSON SMITH. 


Curist’s COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 
lst October 1889. 


1{In the new notes & has commonly been employed in the place of c, 
and other spellings—e.g. Yahweh—adopted in conformity with modern 
usage. | 

2 [See now the List of Abbreviations, etc., on pp. xxi sgq.] 


~ 


NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION 


THE failure of Professor Smith’s health from 1890 onwards 
made it impossible for him to prepare for publication the 
Second and Third Series of Burnett Lectures, delivered in 
March 1890 and December 1891; but the subject never 
ceased to interest him, and the comparatively manageable 
task of embodying in a new edition of the First Series the 
results of further reading and reflection, as well as of 
criticisms from other workers in the same field, was one of 
his latest occupations. On March 17th, only a fortnight 
before his lamented death, he handed over to my care the 
annotated print, and also the manuscript volume of new 
materials, with the remark that, apart from some adjust- 
ments in detail, which he hoped he might yet find strength 
to make as the work passed through the press, he believed 
the revision was practically complete. In making the 
adjustments referred to, it has been my endeavour to carry 
out with absolute fidelity the author’s wishes so far as I 
knew or could divine them; and in the majority of 
instances the task has not been difficult. My best thanks 
are due to Mr. J. G. Frazer, and also to Professor Bevan 
.both of Cambridge), for much valuable help in correcting 
the proofs. 
J. S. B. 


EDINBURGH, 3rd October 1894, 


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 


This list is confined to an explanation of abbreviations and of works often cited in 
abbreviated form. Unless otherwise specified, English and French books are 
printed in London and Paris respectively. 


A. A. B.: A. A. Bevan. 

Abelson, J.: The Immanence of God in 
Rabbinical Literature. 1912. 

Agh.: Kitab al-Aghani. Bulac, 1285. 

AR.: Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaft. 


B.: Banu (sons) (p. 127, n. 1, etc.). 
B.B: Bar Bahlil. 
B. B.: Baba Bathra (p. 102, n. 2). 
Bancroft, H. H.: The Native Races of the 
tw States of North America. 
5-6. 


Barton, G. A.: Sketch of Semitic Origins, 
Social and Religious. New York, 
1902. 

Baudissin: Adonis und Esmun; Hine 
Untersuchung zur Geschichte des 
Glaubens an Auferstehungsgétter 
und an Heilgétter. Leipzig, 1911. 

Studien zur semitischen Religions- 
geschichte. Leipzig, 1876. 

“Der gerechte Gott in altsemit. 
Relig.,” in Festgabe to A. von 
Harnack, 1 sqgg. Tiibingen, 1921. 

Black, J. S., and W. Chrystal: The 
Life of W. Robertson Smith and 
Lectures and Essays. 1912. 

Bousset-Gressmann: Die Religion des 
Judentums tm Spit-hellenistischen 
Zeitalter, by W. Bousset. 3rded by 
Hugo Gressman. Tiibingen, 1926. 

Breasted, James Henry: Ancient Records 
of Egypt: Historical Documents. 
5 vols. Chicago, 1906. 

Development of Religion and Thought 
in Ancient Egypt. 1912. 

Bichler, Adolph: Types of Jewish- 
Palestinian Piety from T0 B.c.E. to 
Oc. The Ancient Pious Men. 


CAH.: The Cambridge Ancient History. 
_ Cambridge, i. 1923. 

Canaan, T.: Articles in the Journal of the 
Palestine Oriental Society, on 
Palestinian religion, custom, and 
folklore, 


Cesnola, Palma di: Antiquities of Cyprus. 
1873 


Chwolson, D.: Die Ssabier und der 


Ssabismus. 2 vols. St. Peters- 
burg, 1856. 

CIGr.: Corpus Inscriptionum Grecarum. 
Berlin, 1828. 

CIL.: C.Inscr. Latinarum. Berlin, 1863. 

CIS.: C. Inser. Semiticarum. Paris, 
1885. (Where the volume is not 


indicated, the reference is to Vol. I. 
Phoenician Inscriptions.) 

Clermont-Ganneau : Recweil d’Archéologie 
Orientale. 8 vols. 1888-1907. 

Cook, Arthur Bernard (Queens’ College, 
Cambridge): Zeus; A Study in 
Ancient Religion. i. 1914; ii. 
1 and 2, 1925. Cambridge. 

Cook, Stanley Arthur (Gonville and Caius 
College, Cambridge): The Laws of 
Moses and the Code of Hammurabt. 


The Study of Religions. 1914. 

Cooke, George Albert (Regius Professor 
of Hebrew, Christchurch, Oxford) : 
A Text-Book of North-Semitic In- 
scriptions. Oxford, 1903. (The 
references, when not to the num- 
ber of the inscription, are to the 
page.) 

Cornford, F. M.: From Religion to 
Philosophy: A Study in_ the 
Origins of Western Speculation. 

- 1912. 

CR.: Comptes Rendus. 

Crawley, A. E : The Mystic Rose: A 
Study of Primitive Marriage (1902). 
(2nd ed. revised and enlarged by 
T. Besterman, has since appeared. 
2 vols. 1927.) 

The Tree of Infe. 1905. 
The Idea of the Soul. 1909. 

Curtiss, S. I.: Primitive Semitic Religion 
To-day. 1902. 

Cumont, F.: The Oriental Religions in 
Roman Paganism. Chicago, 1911. 

Etudes Syriennes. 1917. 


xxi 


XXII 


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 


A aa aS A Nv ann 


Dhorme, P.: La Religion Assyro-Baby- 
lonienne. 1910. 

Déller, J.: Die Reinheits- und Speise- 
gestze des Alten Testaments. Mun- 
ster i. W., 1917. 

Doughty, C. M.: Travels in Arabia 
Deserta. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1888. 

Driver, G. R.: “The Modern Study of 
‘the Hebrew Language,” in People 
and the Book. See Peake. 

“The Psalms in the Light of Baby- 
lonian Research,” in The Psalmists. 
See Simpson. 

Driver, 8. R.: Commentary on Deuteron- 
omy. 1895. 

Durkheim, E.: Zhe Elementary Forms of 
the "Religious Life, 1919. (Transl. 
of Les Formes Elémentaires de la 
Vie Religieuse- le Systeme Totém- 
aque en Australie. 1912.) 

Dussaud, René: Les Origines Cananéennes 


du Sacrifice Israélite. 1921. 

EBi.: Encyclopedia Biblica. 4 vols. 
1899-1903. 

Eitrem, S: Opferritus und Voropfer der 
Griechen und Rémer. Christiania, 
1915 

Ency. Brit.: Encyclopedia Britannica, 


llth ed., 1910-11. (To the 9th 
ed. W. R. S. made valuable con- 
tributions, and of the last part of 
it he was the editor, 1875-89.) 
Encyclopedia of Religion and 
Ethics. 12 vols. 1908-21. Index. 
1926. 
Euting, J.: MNabatéische Inschriften aus 
Arabien. Berlin, 1885. 
Sinditische Inschriften. Berlin, 1891. 


ERE. : 


Farnell, L. R.: The Cults of the Greek 
States. 5 vols. Oxford, 1896. 

Greece and Babylon: A Comparative 

Sketch of Mesopotamian, Anatolian, 

and Hellenic Religions. Edinburgh, 


1911. 
The Evolution of Religion. 1905. 

FHG.: Fragmenta Hist. Graec. ed. 
Miller. 

Fihrist : Ed. Flugel and Rédiger and P. 
Miller. Leipzig, 1871-2. 

FOT.: See Frazer. 

Frankel, S.: Die aramdischen Fremd- 
worter tm arabischen. Leiden, 
1886. 

Frazer, Sir James George: The Golden 


Bough: A Study in Magic and 
Religion. 3rd ed. 1911-20. 
GB. i. The Magic Art and the Evolution 

of Kings, vol. i. 

ii. The Magic Art and the Evolution 
of Kings, vol. ii. 

iii. Taboo and the Perils of the Soul. 

iv. The Dying God. 

v. Adonis, Attis, Osiris, vol. i. 


Frazer, Sir James George : 
B. vi. Adonis, Attis, Osiris, vol. ii. 
vii. Spirits of the Corn and of the 
Wild, vol. i. 
vill. Spirits of or Corn and of the 
Wild, vol. i 
ix. The Sca pan 
x. Balder the Beautiful, vol. i. 
xi. Balder the Beautiful, vol. ii. 
xii. Bibliography and General Index. 
Faroe e edition in one vol, 
1925.) 


Tot. Ex.: Totemism and Exogamy : 
A Treatise on Certain Early Forms 
0 of Superstition and Society. 4 vols. 


1910. 
FOT.: Folklore in the.Old Testament. 
3 vols. 8. 

Pausanias’s Description of Greece: 


Translation and Commentary. 6 


vols. 1898. 

Belief in Immortality and the Worship 
of the Dead, i.-. 1913-. 

Psyche’s Task. 2nd ed. 1913. 


The Sites» of Nature, vol.i. 1926. 


Garstang, J.: The Syrian Goddess, a 
translation of Lucian’s “ De Dea 
Syria,’ with a Life of Lucian, by 
H. A. Strong. 1918. 

Gaudefroy-Demombynes: Pélerinage a la 
Mekke. 19238. 

GB: See Frazer, Golden Bough. 

Gennep, Arnold Van: Les Rites de 
Passage. 1909. 

eee actuel dw Probleme Totémique. 


Gl(ossary) Beladhori (p. 99 n.). 
Goldziher, I. : Muhammedanische Studien, 
i. 1889 ; li. 1890. Halle a. S. 
Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philo- 
logie,i. Leiden, 1896. 
Gray, G. B.: Commentary on Numbers. 
Edinburgh, 1903. 
Sacrifice in the Old Testament: Its 
Theory and Practice. (Posthum- 
ous.) Oxford, 1925 
Gressmann, Hugo: "Mose und seine Zeit. 
Ein Kommentar zu den Mose-sagen. 
Gottingen, 1913. 
Aliorientalische Texte zum _ Alten 
Testament. 2nd ed. Leipzig, 
1926. (Egyptian texts by H. 
Ranke, Bab.-Ass. by E. Ebeling, 
Old South Arabian by Rhodo- 
kanakis.) 
“Die Paradiessage ” in Festgabe to 
A. von Harnack, 24 sgg. Tiibin- 
gen, 1921. 
Guarmani, Carlo: I? Neged Settentrionale 
(p. 99n.). Jerusalem, 1866. 


Halliday, W. R.: Greek Divination: A 
are of its Methods and Principles. 
913. 


ae 


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY xxii 


Harnack: Fesigabe. Tiibingen, 1921. 

Harrison, Miss Jane: Themis; A Study of 
the Social Origins of Greek Religion. 
Cambridge, 1912. 

Hartland, E. S.: Primitive Paternity : 
The Myth of Supernatural Birth in 
Relation to the History of the 
Family. 2 vols. 1909. 

Ritual and Belief: Studies m the 
History of Religion. 1914. 
Primitive Law. 1924. 

Hartmann, M.: Der islamische Orient, ii. 
Leipzig, 1909. 

Head, B. W.: Historra Numorwm. 
Oxford, 1887. 

Hehn, J.: Die biblische und die babylon- 
ische Gottesidee. Leipzig, 1913. 

Hermann: Gottesdienstliche Altertiimer. 

Hobhouse, L. T., G. C. Wheeler, and 
M. Ginsberg: The Material Cul- 
ture and Social Institutions of the 
Simpler Peoples. 1915. 

Morals in Evolution: A Study im 
Comparative Ethics. 1915. 
Hoffman, J. G. E.: Ausziige aus syrischen 

Akten persischer Martyrer. Leip- 
zig, 1880. 
Julianos der Abtriinnige. Leiden, 
_, 1881. 
Uber einige phan. inschr. Gottingen, 


Hommel,. Fritz: Hthnologie wnd Geo- 
graphie des Alten Orrents. Munich, 
1926. 

Hubert and Mauss: Mélanges d’ Histoire 
des Religions (1909). [A translation 
by A. J. Nelson, The Open Court, 
xl. (1926), 33 sqq. 93 sqq. 169 sqq.] 


Ibn Doreid: Kittabu ’l-tshtikak, ed. 
Wiistenfeld. 1854. 

Isaac of Antioch, ed. Bickell, 
1873-6; and Bedjan, 1903. 


Isaac: 


Jacob, G.: Altarabische Parallelen zum 

Alten Testament. Berlin, 1897. 
Altarabisches Beduinenleben. 2nd ed. 
Berlin, 1897. 

Jahnow, Hedwig: Das hebraische Leichen- 
lied im Rahmen der V élkerdichtung. 
Giessen, 1923. 

JAOS.: Journal of the American Oriental 
Society. 

JAs.: Journal Asiatique. 

Jastrow, M.: Die Religion Babyloniens 
und Assyriens. 2 vols. Giessen, 

Rel. Bel.: Aspects of Religious Belief 
and Practice in Bab. and Ass. 
_ New York, 1911. 

Jaussen, Antonin: Coutwmes des Arabes 
au pays de Moab. 1908. 

JBL.: Journal of Biblical Interature. 

JEA.: Journal of Egyptian Archeology. 


Jeremias, Alfred : Handbuch der altorien- 
talischen Geisteskultur. Leipzig, 
191 


The Old Testament in the Light of the 

Ancient East. 1911. 
Jevons, F. B.: Introduction to the History 

of Religion. Tth*ed. 1896. 

Introduction to the Study of Compara- 
tive Religion. New York, 1908. 

The Idea of God in Early Religions. 
Cambridge, 1910. 

Comparative Religion. Cambridge, 
1918. 


Joannes Lydus : See Lydus. 


Johns, C. H. W.: Babylonian and 
Assyrian Laws, Contracts and 
Letters. Edinburgh, 1904. 


JPOS.: Journal of the Palestine Oriental 
Socvrety. 

JQR.: Jewish Quarterly Review. 

JRAI.: Journal of the Royal Anthropo- 
logical Institute. 

JRAS.: Journal of the Royal Astatic 
Society. 

JSOR.: Journal of the Society of Oriental 


Research. 
JTS.: Journal of Theological Studies. 


KAT.: Die Keilinschriften und das Alte 


Testament. 3rd ed. by H. Zim- 
mern and H. Winckler. Berlin, 
1903. 

King, Irving: The Development of 
Religion: A Study in Anthropology 
and Social Psychology. New York, 
1910. 

King, L. W.: History of Swmer and 
Akkad. 1910. 


History of Babylon. 1915. 

Kinship: See Smith, W. R. 

Knudtzon, J. A.: Die El-Amarna-Tafeln 
mit Einleitung und Erléuterungen. 
With notes, etc., by O. Weber and 
E. Ebeling. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1915. 

Kreglinger, R.: Etudes sur l’Origine et le 
Développement de la Vie Religieuse, 
i. Brussels, 1919. 

Kremer, A. von: Studien zur vergleichenden 
Kulturgeschichte. Sitzuwngs-berichte. 
Vol. exx. Vienna, 1890. 

Kuenen, A.: Gesammelte Abhandlungen 
zur biblischen Wissenschaft aus dem 
Hollindischen iibersezt, by K. 
Budde. Freiburg i. B., 1894. 


Lagrange, P. Marie-Joseph: Etudes sur 
les Religions Sémitiques. 2nd ed. 
Paris, 1905. 

Landberg, C. Graf von: Arabica, iv. v. 
Leiden, 1897-8. 

Etudes sur les dialectes de l’Arabe 
méridionale. i, ii, 1-3. Leiden, 
1901-13. 

Lectures and Essays: See Smith, W. R. 


XXIV 


Lidzbarski, M.: Handbuch der nord- 
semitischen Epigraphik nebst aus- 
gewihlten Inschrifien. Text und 
Tafeln. Weimar, 1898. 

Ephemeris fiir semitische Epigraphik, 
i. (1900-2); Giessen, 1902. ii. 
(1903-7); 1908. iii. (1909-15) ; 
1915. 

Lisan al-' Arab: Cairo, 1308. 

Loisy, A.: Essai Historique sur le Sacri- 
fice. 1920. 

Lydus, Joannes (c. 490-570 a.p.) : On the 
editions by Wachsmuth, Leipzig, 
1897 ; Wuensch, ibid. 1898, etc.; 
see Stiibe’s note, p. 337, n. 764. 


Macculloch, J. A.: Comparative Theology. 
2 


McLennan, J. F.: Primitive Marriage. 
Edinburgh, 1865; reprinted in 
Studies in Ancient History. 2nd 
ed. 1886. 


Studies in Ancient History: Second ; 


Series, Comprising an Inquiry into 
the Origin of Exogamy. 1896 
Mader, E.: Die Menschenopfer der alten 
Hebrier und der benachbarten 
Volker. Freiburg i. B., 1909. 
Malinowski, B.: ‘‘ Magic, Science and 
Religion,” in Science, Religion and 
Reality, ed. Joseph Needham 
(1925), pp. 20-84. 
Myth in Primitive Psychology. 1926. 
Articles in Psyche. 


Marett, R. R.: Anthropology and the 
Classics. Oxford, 1908. 
The Threshold of Religion. 2nd ed. 
London, 1914. 
Psychology and Folklore. 1920. 
Marti-Festschrift : Ed. Budde. Giessen, 
1925. 
Meek, C. K.: The Northern Tribes of 
Nigeria. 2 vols. 1925. 


Meyer, Ed., and B. Luther: Die Israeliten 


und ihre Nachbarstimme. Walle a. 
S. i 
Meyer, Eduard : Geschichte des Altertums. 
3rd ed. 
i. 1. Hinleitung. Elemente der An- 
thropologie. 


i. 2. Die dltesten geschichilichen V élker 
und Kulturen bis zum sechzehnien 
Jahrhundert. Stuttgart and Berlin, 
1907, 1913. (References are made 
to the sections.) 

MGWJ.: Monatsschrift fiir Gesch. u. Wiss. 
d. Judentums. 

Moore, G. F,: Articles in Encyclopedia 
Biblica on Asherah, High Place, 
Idolatry and Primitive Religion, 
Molech, Nature-Worship, Queen 
of Heaven, etc., and especially 
Sacrifice. 

History of Religions, i. 1914; ii. 

920. 


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Mordtmann, J. H., and D. H. Miiller: 


Sabdische Denkmédler. Vienna, 
1882. 
Morgenlindische Forschungen:  Fest- 


schrift fiir Fleischer. Leipzig, 1875. 

Morgenstern, J.: “‘ The Doctrine of Sin 
in the Babylonian Religion,” 
MVAG., 1905, iii. (to which 
reference is always made, except 
on pp. 558, 577). 

Muh. i. Med.: See Wellhausen. 

MVAG.: Mitteilungen der vorderasia- 
tischen Gesellschaft. 


Needham : See Malinowski. 

Nielsen, D.: Der dreieinige Gott im 
religionshistorischer Beleuchtung. 
Copenhagen, 1922. (The refer- 
ences are, unless stated, to this 


volume.) 

Handbuch der Altarabischen Alter- 
tumskunde (with Hommel and 
Rhodokanakis), i. Copenhagen, 

«LOT 

Nilsson, N. M. P.: A History of Greek 
Religion. Transl. by F. J. Fielden, 
with a preface by Sir J. G. Frazer. 
Oxford, 1925. 

See Migne, P.Gr. lxxix. Citations 
Dy p. 99 sqg., Lagrange, 


258. 
Noldeke-Festschrift: Ed. Bezold. Gies- 
sen, 1906 


Nilus : 


Oesterley, W. O. E.: Immortality and 
the Unseen World: A Study in 
Old Testament Religion. 1921. 
OLZ.: Orientalistische Literaturzeitung. 
OTJC.: See Smith, W. R. 


Peake, A. S.: The People and the Book. 
(Essays on the O.T. by various 
scholars.) Oxford, 1925. 

PEF.: Palestine Exploration Fund. 

PEF, Qy. St.: Palestine Exploration Fund 
Quarterly Statements. 

PGr.: Patrologia Greca (Migne). 

Pietschmann, R.: Geschichte der Phénizier. 
Berlin, 1889. 

Pilter, W. T.: Index of the South 
Arabian Proper-names in CJS. iv. 
fasc. 1-5. Proc. of the Soc. of 
Biblical Archeology, xxxix. 99-112, 
115-132. 

Potter, M.A.: Sohraband Rustem. 1902. 
PRE.: Real-Encyklopadie fiir Protestant- 
ische Theologie und Kirche. 

Prophets: See Smith, W. R. 

PSBA.: Proceedings of the Society of 
Biblical Archeology. 

PW.: Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopaidie 

der classischen Altertumswissen- 

schaft. 


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY xxv 


Rasmussen : Additamenta ad hist. Arabum 
ante islamismum. Copenhagen, 
1921. 

Reinach, Salomon: Cultes, Mythes et 
Religions. 4 vols. 1905-12. 

REJ.: Revue des Etudes Juives. 

Revue Biblique. 

Revue de V Historie des Religions. 

Ridgeway, Sir William: Hssays and 
Studies Presented to, ed. E. C 
Quiggin. Cambridge, 1913. 

Robinson, K.: Biblical Researches in 
Palestine, Mt. Sinai, and Arabia. 
3 vols, 1841; nd ed, 1846, 

Robinson, H. Wheeler: ‘“ Hebrew Psy- 
chology ” in People and the Book, 
ed. Peake (q.v.). 


Sachau-Festscbrift : 
Berlin, 1915. 

SB.: Sitzwngs-berichte. 

Seligman, C. G.: “Some Aspects of the 
Hamitic Problem in the Anglo- 
Egyptian Sudan,” Journal of the 
Royal Anthropological Institute, 
xlili. (1913), 593-705. 

Seligman, Mrs. Brenda Z.: “ Studies in 
Semitic: Kinship,” Bulletin of the 
School of Oriental Studies, London 
Institution, iii. 1924-5. 

Seligman, C. G. and B. Z.: “The 
Kababish, A Sudan and Arab 
Tribe,” Harvard African Studies, 
ii, 105-186. Cambridge, U.S.A 


Ed. by G. Weil. 


1918. 
Simpson, D. C.: The Psalmists. (Essays hy 
various scholars.) Oxford, 1926. 
Skizzen iv.: See Wellhausen. 
Smith, W. "Robertson: “ Animal Wor- 
’ ship and Animal Tribes among the 
Arabs and the Old Testament,” 
Journal of Philology, ix. (1880) ; ; 
reprinted in Lectures and Essays 
(below). 
Kinship: Kinship and Marriage in 
Early Arabia. 2nd ed. 1894. 
OTJC.: The Old Testament in the 
Jewish Church. 2nd ed. 1892. 
Prophets: The Prophets of Israel. 


2nd ed, 1902. 

Lectures and Essays: Ed. J. S. 
Black and G. W. Chrystal. 
1912. 

Spencer, Sir Baldwin, and F. J. Gillen: 
The Native Tribes of Central 
Australia. 1899. 

The Northern Tribes of Central 
Australia. 1904. 


Spencer, John: De Legibus Hebraeoruwm 
Ritualibus et earwm Rationibus. 1st 
ed. Cambridge. 1685. 

Sprenger: Das Leben wnd die Lehre des 
Mohammads. 2nd ed. 838. vols. 
Berlin, 1861-5 and 1869. 


Stitbe, R.: Die Religion der Semiten 
(German translation of Religion of 
the Semites), with 18 illustrations, 
and a preface by Professor E. 
Kautzsch. Freiburg i. B., 1899. 

Stade’s Zeitschrift: See ZATW. 


Thompson, R. Campbell: Semitic Magic : 

Its Origins and Development. 1908. 
The Devils and Evil Spirits of Baby- 

lonia. 2 vols. 1903-4. 

Thomson, Joseph: Through Masai-Land. 
1885. 

Tot. Ez.: See Frazer. 

Toy, C. H.: Introduction to the History of 
Religions. U.S.A , 1913, 

Tylor, Sir Edward B.: Primitive Culture. 
4th ed. 1903, 


Van Gennep: See Genne 

Vincent, H.: Canaan eee ? Exploration 
Récente. 1907. 

Vogiié, Vicomte de: 
Inscriptions Semitiques. 


Syrie Centrale : 
1868-77. 


Waddington, W. H. (and le Bas.) : Voyage 
archéologique. (The proper names 
in the Greek and Latin inscriptions 
are indexed by Chabot in the 
Revue Archéologique, 1896.) 

Webster, Hutton: Primitive Secret 
Societies: A Study in Early 
Politics and Religion. New York. 


1908. 

Wellhausen, J.: Reste Arabischen 
Heidentums. 1st ed. Berlin, 1887 
(=Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, iii.); 
2nd ed. Berlin, 1897, to which all 
references are made, unless other- 
wise specified. 

Muh.i. Med.: Muhammedin Medina. 
Berlin, 1882. 

Skizzen iv.: (1) Medina vor dem 
Islam ; (2) Muhammads Gemein- 
deordnung von Medina, etc. Berlin, 
1889. 

Ein Gemeinwesen Obrigkeit. 
Gottingen, 1 


ohne 


Wellhausen-Festschift : "Ed. Marti. Gies- 
sen, 1914. 
Westermarck, Edward A.: The Origin 


and Development of the Moral Ideas. 
2 vols. 1906. 

Ritual and Belief in Morocco. 2 vols. 
1926. (Invaluable.) 

The History of Human Marriage. 
3 vols. 1921. 

A Short History of Marriage. 1926. 

Festskrift tiullegnad Westermarck. 
Helsingfors, 1912. 

Wheeler, G. C. W. C.: The Tribe and 

Intertribal Relations in Australia. 


XXVI1 


Wrede, A. v.: Reise in Hadhramaut, ed. 
Maltzau. Brunswick, 1870. 
Wright, William: Notule Syrice. Cam- 

bridge, 1887. 
Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. 
1871. 


W.R.S.: See Smith, W. R. 
WZKM.: Wiener Zeitschrift fiir -die 
Kunde des Morgenlandes. 


Yakut : 


Geog. Wérterbuch, ed. Wiisten- 
feld. 


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 


ZA.: Leitschrifi fiir Assyriologie. 
Zapletal, Vinc., P.: Der Totemismus 
18.190 die Religion Israels. Freiburg 
1 
ZATW. Zeitschrift Mies die alttestament- 
liche Wissenschaft. 
ZDMG.: Z. der deutschen Morgenlindi- 


schen Gesellschaft. 

ZDPV): des deutschen Paldstina- 
V ereins. 

ZNTW.: Z. fiir d. neutestamentliche 
Wissenschaft. 


INTRODUCTION 


Tuis book grew out of a small monograph on “ Animal 
Worship and Animal Tribes among the Arabs and in the Old 
Testament,” published in 1880.1 It was followed by lectures 
on Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia (1885), and by an 
article on ‘‘ Sacrifice’ in the Ninth Edition of the Encyelo- 
pedia Britannica (1886), wherein Robertson Smith began to 
develop those views which were to make the book a land- 
mark.? The Religion of the Semites had an immediate effect 
upon the critical study of religion; and, exercising powerful 
influence upon a host of scholars—one may mention Sir 
James Frazer and Principal F. B. Jevons, Salomon Reinach 
in France, and the German scholar Stade—left its im- 
pression upon all subsequent literature, even where the name 
of the original author ceased to be mentioned. If Dr. John 
Spencer, once Master of Corpus Christi College, ‘‘ may justly 
be said to have laid the foundations of the science of Com- 
parative Religion” (p. xiv above), Robertson Smith, by 
reason of his comprehensive and stimulating treatment, 
came to be regarded in many quarters as one of the founders, 

1 Reprinted in Lectures and Essays, edited by J. S. Black and G. W. 
Chrystal, 1912. 

2 It is interesting to recall that already in The Old Testament in the 
Jewish Church (First Ed. 1881), his doctrine of sacrifice was recognized by 
one of his opponents as involving ‘‘ a new theory of the essential char- 
acter of the Old Testament religion,” one which “‘ cut away the basis on 
which the whole doctrine of salvation rests’ (see Life of W. R. Smith, by 
Black & Chrystal, 1912, p. 417 sq.). Strangely enough, this was not pursued 


in the controversy which was then raging about his writings. 
xxvii 


XXVli INTRODUCTION 


if not pre-eminently as the founder, of the modern study of 
Semitic and other religions.+ 

The volume, the first of a series, is admittedly incom- 
plete. Originally three courses of lectures were planned, to 
culminate in an inquiry into the part played by Semitic 
religion in the general progress of humanity. The second 
series was delivered, from notes, in March 1890; and in 
three lectures covered Feasts, Priests, Prophecy, and 
Divination.2. Publication was proposed, but failing health 
forbade all hopes. Of the third series (three lectures given in 
December 1891), apart from fragmentary notes and meagre 
press reports, little survived, but enough to emphasize the 
profound spiritual difference which he had always maintained 
between the Old Testament and other literature. We know 
that in 1893 he was anxious to finish the second and third 
series of lectures, and “‘ complete his argument,” but this 
was not granted him. He lived to finish the preparation of 
the second edition of this volume, and perhaps the very 
considerable difference between the two editions and the more 
decisive exposition of his main principles which he was able 
to furnish may reconcile us to the loss of what one of the most 
. powerful of intellects would have given had he been spared 
to round off his argument as he desired. 

As it is, The Religion of the Semites is, as the biographers 
acknowledge—one of them a friend of many years’ standing 
—a fragment. “The arrangement is not so methodical as 
could be wished, the canvas is overcrowded, and there are 
repetitions and digressions.” The book contains, as its 
author says, “‘ a considerable number of new ideas,” and the 
biographers remark rightly: “‘He expected much help— 


1 Spencer’s interpretation of the ‘‘ Red Heifer” in De Legibus Hebrae- 
orum Ritualibus et earum Rationibus (1685), marks an epoch. See H. P. 
Smith, Hssays in Biblical Interpretation (Boston, U.S.A., 1921), pp. 106 sqq. 

2 See the Synopsis, Life, pp. 525 sqq. 

3 See Life, pp. 535 sqq. 


INTRODUCTION XX1X 


perhaps more than he ultimately received—tfrom his critics.” 
Looking back, we are bound to admit that he laid down 
principles, some of which have hardly received the attention 
they deserve; he opened out a new field of research, or 
rather, he opened it out in a new manner ; and his life-work, 
taken as a whole, has a significance which perhaps may be 
more readily understood now than when he wrote as a pioneer.! 
While, on the one hand, attention has commonly been directed 
to particular and more sensational theories—notably to 
sacramental communion as the fundamental idea in ancient 
sacrifice and its totemic origin; on the other, the problems 
with which he was occupied are now studied in the light of 
a far greater wealth of material than was accessible in his 
day. The whole subject has become more intricate, and the 
differences among experts, as concerns attitude, treatment, 
and conclusions, more confusing. ‘The mass of data which 
he collected has been increased, and occasionally modified 
or corrected; his most conspicuous theories have been 
closely criticized, but—one may venture to assert—they have 
not been replaced by better ones. It is true that it would 
now be agreed that the course of religious development did 
not run so simply as he thought; but all theories of the 
evolution of culture are under consideration. Again, the 
problems of totemism no longer stand where they did when 
J. F. M‘Lennan revealed to him the value of anthropological 
research ; but totemism is immensely more complex than it 
once seemed. Robertson Smith’s central theory of sacrifice 
as primarily a communion is sometimes felt to be exagger- 
ated ; but subsequent study on this subject has only shown 
that we are still far from an adequate treatment of the 
network of questions with which sacrifice is intertwined. 
Robertson Smith’s temperament, religion, and standpoint 


1The present writer may refer in this connexion to his notice in the 
Hibbert Journal, xi. (1912) pp. 211 sqgq. 


xxx INTRODUCTION 


are so characteristic of him as man and scholar that it is not 
easy, particularly for those who would not share his religious 
convictions, to understand either his attitude or the nature of 
his achievement. In the critical or scientific study of re- 
ligions it is obvious that unprejudiced inquiry inevitably 
affects the growth of a man’s religious or philosophical out- 
look; also, that a man’s religious or philosophical convictions 
inevitably influence his attitude to and treatment of his data. 
This invariable interaction of personal conviction and the 
data of religion—which so often become data only as 
the result of a bona fide though subjective interpretation of the 
material—will, it may perhaps be found, explain Robertson 
Smith’s most characteristic and most permanent work. Our 
most pressing task, then, is to understand him ; and the aim 
of this Introduction is, in the first instance, to indicate what 
seems to be the genetic connexion between his life-work as a 
whole and his theories of religion. 

In Robertson Smith there was a man of really astonishing 
erudition and acute speculative ability. Brilliant in con- 
versation and dexterous in argument, his letters reveal that 
. to the very end he was a man of the deepest religious feelings. 
Moreover, he was, at least as a young man, profoundly in- 
terested in theology. In The Old Testament in the Jewish 
Church (1881) he did more than any one else to interpret 
to English-speaking readers the new stage in Old Testament 
criticism, the importance of which for the study of Semitic 
religion he has described in his Preface (p. xv). In his 
highly technical studies, first on Semitic sociology, later on 
Semitic religion and religious institutions, he might seem to 
have outgrown the theologian and the biblical critic. Yet he 
attracted attention as much by his uncompromising treatment 
of the minutia of Israelite and Oriental life, seriously offending 
those who would sever the Bible from the world which gave 
birth to it and in which it grew up, as by his insistence to the 


INTRODUCTION XxXxl 


last upon the real difference between Biblical Religion and 
all else. 

He was born in November 1846, and, when barely turned 
twenty-two, in a paper on “Christianity and the Super- 
natural ’’ he comes before us as a keen reformer: “ It is the 
business of Christianity to conquer the whole universe to 
itself and not least the universe of thought.’’! He desires a 
new Reformation, for, as he found occasion to complain, in 
many respects “the first promise of the Reformation was not 
fulfilled in the sequel’’ (p. 401). The Reformers gradually 
departed from their own principles and began to explain 
and justify themselves to themselves. But they had had a 
new way of looking at the Bible—in contrast to the un- 
historical intellectualism of their opponents ; and he upholds 
the “ historical treatment ”’ of Scripture, asserting that “ just 
as it requires a historic sense to understand profane history, 
it requires a spiritual sense to understand sacred history.” 
So he would restore the Reformation principles of Biblical 
criticism, and readers of The Old Testament in the Jewish 
Church will remember how, especially in his opening chapter, 
he is at pains to combine the principles of a thorough-going 
criticism with the principles which permeated Western 
Europe at the Reformation. 

Throughout he takes his stand upon the Bible. The Bible 
is not a Book of Infallible Truth, nor is it mainly a Divine 
Body of Doctrine, or a supernatural communication of 
Doctrines. It has the Holy Spirit behind it ; it is the historic 
manifestation of God in Christ, and speaks from the heart and 
to the heart : this is a cardinal point in the genuine Reforma- 
tion which Protestant theology has almost forgotten (p. 406). 
The Bible when diligently studied is “‘the true manual of a 
Catholic religious life.” He looked for a new Catholicity, and 


1 Lectures, p. 135, dated January 1869. The quotations that follow 
are, of course, of different dates. 


XXX INTRODUCTION 


by this he did not mean “ toleration and compromise ” (p. 332) 
—that would have been unlike the man he ever was! Cur- 
rent theology dissatisfied him. As early as 1869 he was 
asserting that it was necessary “frankly to recognize the 
need of progress in our theological conceptions,” for to cling 
to an unchangeable dogma is to cease to cling to the Christ 
of the Gospels who transcends the theology of every age 
(pp. 151, 162). 

Current theology, he complained, had not rightly defined 
its relation to Scripture and its relation to human thought ; 
and, in a striking, though little known, essay on “ The Place 
of Theology in the Work and Growth of the Church ”’ (1875), 
he laments the lack of advance in the Church and the inability 
of theology to speak ‘‘ any decisive and convincing word in 
the questions of the day.” As he says in one of his trenchant 
remarks, ‘“‘a Church which ceases to theologize ceases in the 


99 


same moment to grow.’ He demands a “vigorous theology ”’: 
‘a religion without theology means, for the most part, a 
religion without God.” Theology is a safeguard against the 
mysticism which regards with complacency a degree of 
ignorance in the laity which is inconsistent with truly moral 
growth. Loose unshaped knowledge is a hindrance, and 
side by side with Christian experience there must go “an 
exercise of real hard thought before our knowledge takes 
scientific shape and is really worthy to be called theology ”’ 
(p. 160). Accordingly, a theology of permanent value is 
not to be shaped with reference to the present attitude of 
unbelief, the cause of which he finds in the “actual im- 
perfection of the existent state of the Church ” (p. 314, dated 
1875). 

He maintained that the relation between practical religion 
and theology requires serious consideration. Christian know- 
ledge should be in direct contact with faith and practice ; and 
if inarticulate, it is “‘deep inarticulate knowledge elaborated 


INTRODUCTION XXXill 


in practice.” The true function of theology is to make 
explicit and elaborate truths which “in the shape of practical 
tact and insight lie at the root of untheological wisdom ”’ 
(pp. 321 sqq.). “The theology of a living Church,” he had 
said earlier, ‘‘does not start from the mere outward form and 
vehicle of Christianity’; there can be no true theology 
where there is no true Christian life (pp. 152, 155; cf. 133). 
It is religious experience which makes us believe in the 
authority of Scripture and not the reverse. So writes the 
young theologian, insisting upon the difference between 
the practical religious life, on the one side, and on-the other, 
the theology which once alive has become defective and 
moribund. 

As we read his early addresses it is very difficult not to 
perceive that the way is being paved for his subsequent 
recognition of the superior significance, for the study of the 
world’s religions, of the unspoken ideas embodied in traditional 
ritual (cf. below, pp. 25 foot, 26 top). Hence, just as theology 
is of varying value according to its relation to the circum- 
stances of the age, so myth in turn is commonly of secondary 
importance. The theology of a living Church, he had 
asserted (in 1869), comes when the Church is conscious that 
she holds the true substance of Christianity (Lectures, p. 155) ; 
and we shall miss the point of Robertson Smith’s later re- 
searches if we ignore the fact that the man who hoped for a 
new Catholicity was, consciously or unconsciously, looking for 
the factors which are creative in religious development, and 
that in years to come he was to turn from the contrast 
between a living Christian faith and an imperfect theology 
to the contrast between the practical, working religion of 
primitive peoples and the secondary myths. 


1 We must recognize that sweeping condemnation of all myth is not 
intended, and that some myths may be of immediate value (see below, 
p. 501). 

Cc 


XXXIV INTRODUCTION 


Theology, he declares, is needed in order to make Christ- 
ianity a social thing; it implies a knowledge which can be 
put into words and imparted to a man who has not shared 
the experience of him who imparts it. It is a social bond ; 
for a Christian society is not the sum of its individuals but 
an organic unity, and the fellowship or the corporate spirit 
which makes such a unity is a moral, not a physical fact. 
No outward sign but an invisible bond unites the Church 
invisible, the mystic body of Christ; and we cannot tell 
what partakers of the sacraments are true members of 
Christ.1 Repeatedly he returns to the personal intercourse 
between God and man ; and he quotes with approval Luther’s 
saying that Faith unites the soul to Christ as a bride to her 
bridegroom (pp. 115, 225 sq.). This conviction of a close 
personal relationship is central in his early essays on Christian 
religion and theology, and it becomes of cardinal importance 
in The Religion of the Semites. It is, therefore, of the highest 
interest to perceive how the theologian was reaching out 
towards his pregnant generalization of the significance of 
the social unit—of the group and’ group-religion—which 
subsequent writers have developed further along different 
lines. 

Hebrew Prophecy interested him from the first, and his 
great book on the Prophets of Israel (first ed. 1882 ; second 
ed. 1902) is still a great classic. True prophecy, he laid 
down, rests upon the conviction of a personal and living power, 
the utterance of a new life, which sprang from the infinite 
source of all life (Lectures, pp. 189, 365). In what he has to 
say of the prophets, of Christ, and of the Reformers, and in 
his own religious idealism—throughout there peers the germ 
of his fine theory that the consciousness of .communion is 
the most vital phenomenon in all religion. Not that all 


1 Pp. 325 sqq., cf. 275, 319. There is no grace ex opere operato (p. 223, 
cf. p. 152). 


INTRODUCTION XXXV 


else is unessential, but that it vitalizes religion, and without 
it the progressive development of religion would be inex- 
plicable. It is in this sense that the idea of communion is 
original or primary, and much confusion has been caused 
because this has not been fully realized. 

Religion has its ebb and flow, and different stages have 
their distinctive criteria. The Reformation was marked by 
the new growth of the religious spirit, a new self-consciousness 
separates the Reformers from their fore-goers ; a new stage 
was reached, and it was of supreme importance for the 
dynamics of religion. From time to time there comes the 
stage when a distinction can be drawn between the sign and 
the signified, between the word and its real meaning, between 
the outward letter and the experiences demanding expression. 
“ With the Reformation begins a great awakening into new 
self-conscious personal life” (p. 225). So it came to pass 
that while acknowledging himself a son of the Reformation, 
he was profoundly dissatisfied with the conditions in which 
he found himself, and gradually passed from his arresting 
treatment of current religion and theology to the inquiry 
into the systematic treatment of Semitic religion. The task 
of restating religious truths gave way to the distinctly 
specialised study of ancient religion, and almost at the close 
of his life we find this surely noteworthy admission, “I 

begin to think I never can have been a theologian ” (Life, 
p. 535). 

But throughout he placed the Bible by itself, and in- 
sisted that Christianity must be supernatural. Yet as early 
as 1869 he was saying that the significance of the super- 
natural falls away when man’s redemption ceases to be 
imperfect (p. 119). More precisely, this means that the 
fellowship of God and Man, with its implication o! divine 
““ijmmanence,” is accompanied with the consciousness of 
the gulf between the human and the divine. Prophets 


XXXVIl INTRODUCTION 


were filled with the conviction of a “ personal” communion 
with God; they were inspired by something distinct from 
themselves and not by ‘“‘ the immanent spirit of the universe 
working in their own hearts” (p. 365). Their supreme 
consciousness of the nearness and immediacy of the Divine 
was of ‘‘a transcendent,” not an ‘‘immanent’”’ power, and 
it is essential to remember that wholly characteristic of 
Robertson Smith’s position is his denial of Semitic mono- 
theism and his recognition that “immanence ”’ no less than 
“transcendence ’’ distinguishes Semitic religion generally. 
The significance of this has hardly been sufficiently realized, 
and demands a few words. 

In a very notable essay on “ Prophecy and Personality ” 
January 1868) the young scholar pointed out how the 
prophet’s personality builds up the vision which he sees 
(p. 98). The subjective side is vital—we have only to com- 
and observe 
the difference in content and value due to the difference in 


2 


pare the “ varieties of religious experience ’ 


training and temperament of each prophet, seer, or mystic. 
But, as he himself says a little later, ‘a consciousness 
originally subjective in character, is not . . . purely sub- 
jective in origin.” There is no “ dictation from on high of 
truths about God and man ”’; and he is as anxious to avoid 
false ideas of inspiration and revelation as to escape “the 
no less dangerous extreme of mysticism giving an unbounded 
play to an unrestrained subjectivity ” (p. 157 sq.). In a 
remarkable essay on the “ Poetry of the Old Testament,” 
written in 1877, he takes a wider view of religion. Com- 
menting upon the absence of calm, disciplined, and intel- 
lectual effort among primitive peoples, he lays stress upon 
the intensely practical nature of their religion. ‘‘ All 
thought stands in immediate contact with living impressions 
and feelings, and so, if incapable of rising to the abstract, 
is prevented from sinking to the unreal,’ Religious truths 


INTRODUCTION XXXVII 


centre in human life and human interests. There was no 
“dreamy unpractical sentimentalism,’”’ and he has the 
profound observation that it is the preponderance of the 
emotional rather than of the rational part of a man’s nature 
that makes a strong personality able to conquer all diffi- 
culties, whereas intellectual acuteness is often associated 
with a restlessness of purpose that can attain nothing great 
(p. 443). It is a remark which one is tempted to take as 
an unconscious self-revelation. 

Now to the Semites and other primitive peoples the 
Universe is “‘a complex of living powers ”’ with which man 
enters into a fellowship; he is awed by their might, or he 


b) 


3 


boastfully bends them to his service. All nature is “‘in- 
stinct with life which vibrates responsive to each change in 
his personal feelings and spiritual relations”’ (p. 421 sq.). 
Kverywhere man sees in nature life bearing directly upon him. 
All life has a meaning for man, the fascination for the Semitic 
mind of the idea of practical lordship over powers mightier 
than himself “‘ finds a loftier and truer, but not less character- 
istic, expression in the Old Testament.” His ethical mono- 
theism alone saved the Israelite. In vivid sentences 
Robertson Smith paints ‘“‘ the nature-worship of the heathen 
Semites,” the “religion of passionate emotion,’ the worship 
** of those inner powers, awful because unseen, of which outer 
things are only the symbol,” the “‘sombre horror” and 
‘wildest sensuality.” “‘The very tone of mind which 
makes Semitic heathenism the most hideous of false worships, 
enabled the Hebrew nation to grasp with unparalleled 
tenacity and force the spiritual idea of Jehovah.” These are 
weighty words, and they must be before us when some writers 
with the best intentions draw idyllic pictures of religion prior 
to the prophets,and unwittingly make of these majestic figures 
an unintelligible phenomenon in the history of religion, 
unintentionally accusing them of grossest exaggeration. 


XXXVIll INTRODUCTION 


“To the Hebrew, force is life and life is personality ” 
(ib.) ; and we come to perceive that what we call “‘ religion ” 
is, as it were, woven upon a texture of beliefs and customs 
which cannot be called by that name, and that a social- 
religious system is the safeguard against the dangerous 
kinship of Magic with Religion. The lofty spiritual heights 
of the Israelite prophets are a reaction against the crudest 
physical and material depths ; and in the darkness, cruelty 
and coarsest orgies of the Semite—ever prone to extremes—it 
was left for the few to enunciate truths of spiritual intimacy 
with the Divine and of man’s place in the Universe. One 
has only to read the pages on Hebrew poetry and on the 
Semite’s sense of personal fellowship with the life of all that 
surrounds him—animate and inanimate—to realize how 
natural was the transition from the theologian writing in 
1877 on the “‘ Poetry of the Old Testament,” to the anthro- 
pologist who, in July 1880, had begun to view the Old Testa- 
ment and the Semites in the light of M‘Lennan’s researches 
on totemism. 


The merit of M‘Lennan’s totem-hypothesis lies, according 
to Robertson Smith, in the fact that “it does justice to the 
intimate relation between religion and the fundamental 
structure of society which is so characteristic of the ancient 
world.” + It threw new light upon the history of religion 
as a social system; and it is not surprising, when we con- 
sider his readiness to recognize both the lighter and darker 
sides of primitive religion, that his own theory of totem- 
sacrament seemed to him to provide the key to the develop- 
ment of religion from its lowest to its highest forms. The 
theory was justly called by Reinach “‘one of the most 
brilliant discoveries of modern science’ ;? and in spite of 


1 Kinship and Marriage, p. 258 sq. 
28. Reinach, Cultes, Mythes et Religions, iv. 23 (cited in Life, p. 567). 
Reinach’s well-known mot concerning Robertson Smith—‘ genuit Frazerum”’ 


INTRODUCTION XXX1X 


the extent to which totemism has been abused, this rudi- 
mentary type of cult still provides one of the most intricate 
problems of the modern study of religion.t The reasons for 
this can be briefly summarized. (1) There are the ex- 
tremely difficult technical problems of distinguishing between 
the varieties of totemism and totemic, totemistic and therio- 
morphic beliefs and practices. (2) Animal deities and animal 
imagery prevail even among advanced peoples. (3) There is a 
persistence or recrudescence of the animal features (whether 
totemic or not) by the side of and in spite of distinctly 
high forms of cult. (4) Besides the obvious and essential 
points of contrast between totemic (and all related) features 
and anthropomorphic religion, there are no less essential 
points of contact and a genetic connexion can apparently 
be traced between them. At all events, no theory of the 
phenomena of religion can be entertained which does not do 
adequate justice to these beliefs and practices which seem 
to be so remote from our way of thinking. For (5) totemism 
involves a way of thinking which it is difficult or impossible 
for us to grasp; and in the attempt to understand the true 
relation between it and higher modes of thought we immensely 
enlarge our knowledge of mental processes and the lines along 
which they have developed. 

To put the fundamental problem otherwise, we have to 
determine (1) whether the most rudimentary types of religion 
were (a) anthropomorphic or (b) theriomorphic, and specifi- 
cally totemic ; (2) whether the latter type (b) can reasonably 
be derived from the former (a); and (3) into what did the 
latter develop, if at all. If theriomorphism is, as at times it 
seems to be, a refuge from an inadequate or impoverished 
anthropomorphism, was it—was totemism—normal before 


—can be supplemented by the remarks of his biographers in the Life, 

p. 494 sq., and by Sir James Frazer’s own Preface to The Golden Bough. 
1 See especially A. van Gennep, L’Hiat actuel du Probléme Totémique 

(1920). For a recent definition of totemism, see below, p. 535 n. 1. 


xl INTRODUCTION 


there was anthropomorphic religion ? Such questions cannot 
be ignored by those who are interested in the line of develop- 
ment which religion has taken hitherto. 

Sir James Frazer, who dedicated The Golden Bough to 
his friend Robertson Smith, ‘‘in gratitude and admiration,” 
refers in the Preface of the Second Edition (1900) to the 
famous discoveries made in Central Australia by Sir Baldwin 
Spencer and Mr F. J. Gillen which revolutionized ideas of 
totemism, and indeed of rudimentary religion in general. 
He points out that while these have proved that there were 
indeed—as Robertson Smith had surmised—clans who 
killed and solemnly ate their totem animal, this fact did 
not make the rite either a universal one or the origin of 
animal sacrifice in general. More than that, the totem was 
not a god, but on a more equal relationship; and the rites 
were not “‘religious ’’ but “‘ magical.” Hence, if Robertson 
Smith’s insight was thus triumphantly justified im some 
essential particulars, it now appeared that totemism was 
not the sort of cult that he had supposed. Naturally no 
one would wish to minimize the importance of Sir James 
Frazer’s candid admissions in The Golden Bough and else- 
where, but several points have certainly to be taken into 
consideration. Jevons, Marett, and Durkheim, all most 
highly equipped and competent observers, and writing from 
rather different standpoints, do not agree that Robertson 
Smith is refuted by the character of the Australian evidence. 
And Malinowski, in the course of a valuable study of primi- 
tive religion, while speaking of Central Australian totemism 
as “a system of magical co-operation,’ emphasizes its sur- 
vival value, and observes that “totemism appears . . . as 
a blessing bestowed by religion on primitive man’s efforts 
in dealing with his useful surroundings.” + Obviously 


1 In Science, Religion and Reality (ed. J. Needham, 1925), p. 46. The 
italics are ours. 


INTRODUCTION xli 


iad 


our conceptions of religion”? and “‘magic” are at 
stake. 

Further, the totem is not, after all, precisely the equal 
of man, and in totemism we find ruder forms of what is 
familiar in anthropomorphic religion: imitation of and 
identification with the sacred being, appeal to it, and value 
attached to its name. Nay, more, with his usual courtesy 
and invariable loyalty to facts, Sir James Frazer has drawn 
the attention of the present writer to certain cases where 
the totem is actually the object of a cult.1_ The importance 
of the new evidence is undeniable, and it brings to the front 
two urgent questions. The first is, is it desirable to have 
only the two pigeon-holes—either Religion or Magic— 
wherein to distribute the relevant data? Do we not also 
need the description Magico-Religious ? The second con- 
cerns degrees of Religion and the varying quality of Deity. 
Even in anthropomorphic religion gods often stand in a 
very close relationship to their worshippers, and, as frequently 
in personal religion and mysticism, the attitude of dependence 
upon the god is by no means the only one. Again, there 
are both near and remote gods; and they vary in status, 
even as at the present day saints or Eastern welts are not 
“‘ gods ”’ from the point of view of the orthodox and national 
religion, though they are apt to be very adequate deities 
from that of the inhabitant of the locality wherein they are 
commanding figures. 

Further, as a general rule, religion is much more “ prac- 
tical’ than is recognized by writers who have adversely 
criticized Robertson Smith’s leading positions; and the 


1 Jn a letter of April 27, 1925, Sir James Frazer states that the cases 
which he had lately noticed of worship or sacrifices regularly offered to 
totems are (1) in the Bombay Presidency, R. E. Enthoven, Folklore of 
Bombay (Oxford, 1924), pp. 19, 209-211 ; (2) in the Ivory Coast, L. Tauxier, 
Negres Gouro et Gagou (Paris, 1924), pp. 145, 160, 183, 205, 223, 256, 257 ; 
and (3) in the Solomon Islands, C. E. Fox, The Threshold of the Pacific 
(London, 1924), pp. 10 sqg., 72, 73, 74, 75, 275. 


xiii INTRODUCTION 


extent to which directness, intimacy, and a confidence verging 
on compulsion colour much that is remote from “‘ magic,” 
and can only be regarded as “ religion,” is as significant as 
it is surprising. Long ago an acute critic remarked that 
Robertson Smith’s idea of a primitive communion “ seemed 
too theologically abstract to be at the basis of savage rites 
of sacrifice.”’1 But, as has been seen, Smith had already 
insisted upon the practical nature of primitive, and especially 
of Semitic religion.2 The longing for Atonement and the 
rites which brought together gods and worshippers were 
ultimately for the “‘ material ”’ as for the “ spiritual ” well- 
being of men. This is both Biblical and primitive religion, 
and students, compelled to formulate the difference between 
Religion and Magic, and between degrees of Deity, may yet 
find themselves compelled to consider what shall be the 
criterion of “ spiritual ”’ religion (see pp. 676 sqq.). 

If the objection just referred to appears to rest on the 
frequent confusion of the perception of metaphysical or 
theological facts with the capacity for metaphysical or 
theological reasoning—on which, see p. 655 and n.2—a more 
forcible criticism is that which objects, and not unjustly, 
that Robertson Smith carried simplification too far and 
formulated too simple a theory of the history of religion.® 

In his theory of the totem-sacrament, while freely recog- 
nizing the prominence of the gift-idea in all religion, he 
gave the priority to the communion idea. The most recent 
study of the subject emphasizes the strength and persistence 
of the gift idea, but clearly recognizes that it does not explain 
all the data.4 The eminent Dominican, Father Lagrange, 


1 Jos. Jacobs, Studies in Biblical Archeology (1894), p. 33 sq. 

2 Cf. Lectures, p. 443 (above, p. xxxvi sq.), and Old Testament in the 
Jewish Church, p. 441 (cited below, p. 671). 

3 See Life, p. 517 sq. 

4G. Buchanan Gray, Sacrifice in the Old Testament (Oxford, 1925), 
p. 352, etc. This posthumous volume covers a very wide field; and it 
is much to be deplored that so splendid a scholar, who made so many 


INTRODUCTION xiii 


author of a work which in many respects is scarcely less 
indispensable than The Relgiwon of the Semites, makes many 
valuable criticisms; but he agrees that communion is a 
constitutive element in sacrifice, and that the do ut des 
element does not explain the horror sacer.1 Rather is it 
that the author, like all pioneers, is deemed to have exag- 
gerated the prevalence and significance of the communion 
idea. So, Hubert and Mauss in their important monograph 
on sacrifice, while agreeing with Robertson Smith’s general 
treatment of taboos and the ideas of holy and unclean, 
decisively reject his genealogical explanation of the history 
of sacrifices? And Durkheim, too, who perhaps more than 
any other writer has most powerfully supplemented his 
treatment of religion as a social institution, points out that 
ideas of gift, renunciation, and expiation are very early.3 
Harnest heed must be paid to these criticisms ; yet, when 
all has been said, is it not true that every profound religious 
act 1s, In a sense, an act of communion? So, as G. F. Moore 
has pointed out, the sacrificial feast at the sanctuary must 
have strengthened the bond of religion by the sense of God’s 
presence and friendliness. Malinowski speaks of the gifts of 
food to the gods as ‘‘ communion in beneficent abundance.’”® 
To be sure, a more careful study might lead us to attempt to 
draw the lines between friendliness, fellowship, communion, 


permanent contributions to Biblical Studies, was not spared to give unity 
and completeness to this admirable collection of lectures. 

1 Hiudes des Religions Sémitiques, p. 267. The value of this work will 
be evident from the many references to it in the new notes to this edition. 
Its attitude can be gauged from the statement in the Preface that The 
Religion of the Semites “‘ est constamment dominé par une idée fausse, 
limportance exagérée du totémisme dans I’ histoire de la religion.” 

2 Mélanges @ Hist. des Religions, Preface, p. iv. 

3 The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: a Study in Religious 
Sociology (London, 1915), pp. 343, 406. 

4 Hncy. Biblica, art. ‘‘Sacrifice” (§ 42 end); still the completest 
synopsis of the subject from the Biblical point of view. 

® Op. cit., p. 43. 


-xliv INTRODUCTION 


and identity. In this way it might be possible to discuss 
“ the degree of at-one-ment present in the various Sacrifices, ’ 
how far, for example, ‘‘ any sense of Divine indwelling ”’ was 
conveyed by the Jewish Peace Offering. Buchanan Gray 
himself, in the volume already referred to, is at pains to 
discuss the different nuances of the sacrificial ceremonies. 
Undoubtedly much could be done along such lines. One 
could compare and contrast the relative psychological effect 
of sacred stones (and other inanimate objects), sacred 
animals (varying in utility or in character), and sacred men 
(ancestors, saints, divine rulers, etc.). One could consider 
the sort of ideas which would naturally be symbolized, sug- 
gested, or carried by each of these. One could discuss the 
possible place of each in the social group. In this way much 
light could be thrown upon the self-evident effects—social, 
moral, intellectual—which different sorts of sacred persons, 
things, or rites could have upon a religion and its vicissitudes. 
But there would remain ultimate problems which, even if 
they are not handled, cannot be dismissed. 

The difficulty of interpreting rites is notorious ; they may 
not retain their apparently obvious meaning, and may 
perhaps have acquired a new one. The most solemn of rites 
may have only a transitory value for the worshipper, and the 
most simple of commemorative occasions may be charged 
with the profoundest meaning. Further, the study of the 
history of religion reveals the essential fact that at certain 
periods religion has lost that reality which had once made 
it a force in the life of a people ; or a line is drawn between 
the existing religion and new spiritual tendencies, and the 
standard of real and true religion is set so high that it cannot 

1 See the criticisms of M. H. Pinard de la Boullaye, S.J., in his elaborate 
work, Ltude Comparée des Religions : Essai Critique (Paris, 1922 and 1925), 
i a C. Gayford, Sacrifice and Priesthood (London, 1914), pp. 
33, 39. 


INTRODUCTION xlv 


be ignored in an estimate of religion in general. The inquiry 
into the vicissitudes of religious beliefs and practices is that 
into men’s convictions concerning what to them were supreme 
realities, and it cannot be indifferent to the great periods 
which force the question whether and in what way the 
ultimate realities of the Universe are themselves involved 
in those convictions which are explicit or implicit in religion. 

The student who has grasped the spirit of the Bible knows 
that in the last analysis no human being or human institution 
can determine the real value of convictions of the relations 
between man and God. Robertson Smith wrote in 1871 
that men cannot judge who are true members of Christ (above, 
p. xxxiv). There are Biblical passages which imply that the 
Deity may be in fellowship with men who do not recognize 
Him, and that He does not necessarily operate in accordance 
with the ways in which He has been apprehended. Such are 
among the data of religion, and no impartial student can 
refuse to find a place for them in the final synthesis. It is 
this transcendence of the ultimate realities, and the knowledge 
that convictions and theories are approximations, and that 
the progress of thought enables us to test these approxima- 
tions, which combine to make the newer study of the world’s 
religions a landmark in the history of religion. 

Views are extensively held to the effect that Magic is 
absolutely prior to Religion, that Fear is primary, and that 
Sacrifice served originally to propitiate gods and avert their 
anger—and so forth. One’s own personal religion may make 
it impossible to accept such views; one’s experience may 
convince one that familiarity certainly breeds indifference, 
and that it is natural to seek to placate the anger only of one 
who isknown. But, quite apart from one’s personal religion, 
it is puzzling to see how ideas could ever arise in the first 
instance of a supersensuous being with particular attributes ; 
and the yiews in question labour under the double disadvan- 


xlvi INTRODUCTION 


tage of surreptitiously introducing all the question-begging 
elements and of doing scanty justice to their rivals. On the 
other hand, on the assumption of the relative priority of 
Religion certain tendencies are seen to be normal and inevit- 
able. On the assumption of certain conceptions of the 
Ultimate Realities the variation and vicissitudes of ideas of 
gods and men can be more or less intelligibly traced, and the 
interrelation between the religious (magical, etc.) and the 
non-religious spheres can be fruitfully studied. When what is 
called “‘ religion,” in its divers forms, makes its appearance in 
an individual’s life and thought it becomes so fused with the 
‘non-religious,’ that the really vital problem for modern 
research is not the Conflict of Science and Religion, so called, 
but the varying relations between the “religious” and 
‘non-religious ’’ phases of life and their mutual interaction. 
Thus there quickly arises the need for a more theoretical 
treatment of religion which is able to do justice to those 
views, on the one side or the other, which are pronounced 
improbable or impossible ; and of this theoretical treatment 
Robertson Smith, because of his line of approach, may be 
claimed as the founder. 

It is of the utmost importance that we should distinguish 
between actual historical origins and whatever inaugurates 
new lines of development. Robertson Smith is concerned 
with creative ideas, with those that recur and govern the 
evolution of faith and worship. It is an inquiry, as he 
himself admits, of real interest to the ‘‘ philosophical student ”’ 
(p. 15). And when he argues that the communion of the 
group with their god stands at the head of all developments 
it is easy to see how extraordinarily impressive the theory 
is from the theistic standpoint, but how delicate, directly we 
perceive that of the great variety of experiences which can be 
classed as “‘numinous,”’ only some are of definite “religious ” 
significance, and these, after what has been said, differ in 


OE OS a ee ee a 


INTRODUCTION xlvii 


quality and value.t Now Robertson Smith is not merely 
concerned with creative ideas and creative experiences— 
the factors that make for new developments in religion— 
he takes a very definite Christian standpoint, and the ques- 
tion is really a very important one, whether this has prejudiced 
or facilitated his researches. 

His peculiar interest in the Reformation and Protestant- 
ism, his desire for some new formulation of theology, and his 
pioneering work in the criticism of the Old Testament, in 
particular the function of the prophets, and finally his in- 
variable distinction between “ natural ’’ and “‘ supernatural ” 
religion have recognizably influenced the lines he has taken. 
Accordingly, the ebb and flow of beliefs and the vicissitudes 
of cults are not so significant for him as that progressive 
development which would undoubtedly strike him as he 
looked back upon the “ heathenism ”’ of the Semites and the 
more rudimentary cults of primitive peoples, and looked 
forward to a further development in religion. The problems 
as they presented themselves to him were necessarily other 
than those that confront scholars whose main work has lain 
in other fields, or whose deepest sympathies are perchance 
differently directed. The training which might have en- 
couraged the most hesitating and mediating of inquiries made 
him at all events the most uncompromising of investiga- 
tors ; and if The Religion of the Semites marks an epoch, it was 
because it came from the hands of a man who combined 
with unequalled knowledge a sympathetic insight into the 
most advanced and the most rudimentary religions in a way 
which has not been equalled by his successors, and whose 
genius saw new prospects opening out in the world of thought. 
With him : la théorie c’est Vhomme. 


1 According to Hubert and Mauss the sacrifice establishes a communica- 
tion between the sacred sphere and the profane (cf. Toy’s summary, 
Introduction to the History of Religion, § 1049). This is much more general- 
ized than Robertson Smith’s theory of the communion of worshippers 


xviii INTRODUCTION 


That Robertson Smith’s arguments were influenced by 


current evolutionary ideas was inevitable, and one can but 
say that the study of beliefs and customs as such can only 


be pursued along evolutionary lines, and that those writers 
who object to one theory of development usually prove to 
be cherishing another of their own. In point of fact, we 
pass from the ‘comparative’ treatment of the data of 
religion to the best method of presenting them, and enter 
upon the most difficult part of the subject. In the first 
place, then, it may be observed that the main argument of 
The Religion of the Semates does not require us to believe that 
the communion idea is some absolutely prior abstraction. 
His recognition of aberration, degradation, etc. (pp. 354, 
394), indicates that by the “ origin ”’ of sacrifice is not meant 
that which characterized the earliest prehistoric religion 
alone. It is rather that this idea, although it operated from 
the very first, lies at the back of the new and significant stages 
in the development of sacrificial ritual. On the same analogy, 
it can be seen that similar tendencies explain initiation, 
in one place into a tribal group, in another into important 
secret societies, and in a third into small guilds or unions 
(cf. p. 607 sq.). Further, revolutionary aims and methods, 
very similar in several respects, will differ everywhere 
according to current conditions. And even as regards the 
“animal” features in totemism, there are significant anal- 
ogies not only in “totemistic”’ rites (those that are not 
strictly “‘totemic”’), but also in those that can only be 
called “‘theriomorphic”’ (cf. p. 538 sq.). Thus, there are 
similar recurrent elements which take different forms peculiar 
to each age, land, and community, and a Science of Religion 
must do justice alike to the essential resemblances and the 
equally essential differences. 


with their god ; but less so than the more recent conception of experiences — 


of the ‘‘ numinous,” see p. 554. 


a Sw 


INTRODUCTION xlix 


In the present state of knowledge, ambiguity and vague- 
ness are here unavoidable. None the less we can under- 
stand Robertson Smith’s meaning when he speaks of “ the 
more ancient idea of a living communion ”’ and its “‘ element 
of permanent truth” (p. 396). He has in mind the recur- 
rence of the idea at different stages; and its “truth” is 
proved by the fact that it is constantly reappearing, though 
reshaped, and evidently answers to some vital need. Again, 
when both ordinary and extraordinary sacrifices go back to 
the same principle (p. 312), we may use symbols and say 
that the x which is found in] reappears in mand n. But, we 
ask, do n and m go back to lJ, or to the common factor zx ? 
Analysis takes us back to what Buchanan Gray suggestively 
calls the “‘ actual creative idea.” 1 But instead of inaugural or 
creative ideas—or experiences—we can go back to an initiator 
or originator, to an arkhé.? Or else we arrive at the embodi- 
ment of an idea, or some system or some stage which, by 
reason of its evident primary position, is commonly regarded 
as the true “origin.” Thus it is easy to see how confusion 
can arise when the attempt is made to account for recurring 
tendencies or to trace back things to their “ beginnings.”’ 

Indeed, when sacrificial rites—or aught else for that 
matter—are traced back to a single ancestor, it is easier to 
criticize the fallaciousness of this simple procedure than to 
find a better one that is not too intricate.2 We cannot 
intelligently conceive any absolute beginning: our most 
ancient data are relatively recent, considering the antiquity 
of man; the most primitive communities have a history 
behind them; and repeatedly it can be seen that ancient 
evidence is not necessarily prior—sociologically speaking— 


1 Gray, Sacrifice, p. 359 n. 

2 See especially J. L. Myres, The Political Ideas of the Greeks (1927), 
Index, s.v. 

3 Cf. p. 499. Instead of seeking a single ancestor, the attempt is 
often made to find a single ancestral home, cf. p. 497. 


ad 


] INTRODUCTION 


to that which is later. As a general rule one must be guided 
by a knowledge of actual known processes in the vicissitudes 
of religious and other thought, and by “ methodological 
necessity ’’—the most effective treatment of the data. Many 
cases will be found in these pages where we gradually pass 
from mere “‘ comparison ” to “‘ methodology,” and problems 
arise which are much too technical for discussion EES 
Some of them may be mentioned as illustrations. 

The theory of the absolute priority of mother-right— 
of which there are sevéral varieties—was adopted by Robert- 
son Smith, and after being under a cloud, has again become 
respectable. We must recognize that certain conditions 
would give mother-right prominence at certain periods and— 
what is no less interesting—they can also make the theory 
itself more attractive! Thus the Arabian evidence belongs 
on the whole to a transitional period, after the decline of 
the great cultures to which the South Arabian inscriptions 
testify ; and while it is arguable that in prehistoric times 
mother-right would completely overshadow father-right, it 
is a little difficult to see why it should be given absolute 
priority.1 Next, if we consider the theory of a primitive 
promiscuity—now fallen into the background—it can be 
argued that promiscuity is likely to lead to the inauguration 
of some social régime, even as rampant lawlessness will force 
the effort to institute order. Promiscuity and lawlessness 
can hardly be regarded as a stage of evolution “ prior” to 
the “‘introduction ” of social order and justice, but rather 
as a step leading thereto, and doubtless often following upon 

1 It may be noticed that the question of the relative priority of gods as 
‘brothers’ or as “‘ fathers”? (pp. 510, 512) is complicated by such an 
observation as Oswald Spengler’s on the Russian tendency away from the 
Father-God to a fraternal relationship ; see Decline of the West, i. 201 n. 2 
(‘‘ Christ, even, is conceived as a Brother’’). The tendencies which affect 
conceptions of (a) supreme gods, and (b) those near at hand and more 


closely associated with men, cannot be treated as stages in any poet 
development. eed J 


—_—— - 


INTRODUCTION li 


the collapse of some earlier system. In other words, we can 
only deal effectively with systems, and although the social 
group is made up of individuals, the group rather than the 
socius is the more effective unit. 

Individual religion and individual property are secondary 
(p. 247 sq.), though it is obvious that to men of personality 
all the great changes are due. Among rudimentary peoples 
both personal religion and personal property can be traced, 
but the cases are often irrelevant, just in the same way as 
the social equality which we discern among primitive peoples 
disappears on closer inspection, but the inequalities are 
negligible for the particular purpose of our initial inquiry. 
Again, in tracing back the development of life and thought, 
we go from our modern highly differentiated and specialized 
conditions to conditions so extremely simple as to appear 
absolutely undifferentiated. But the most homogeneous 
clan-units and the simplest elements which we reach prove 
to be integral parts of some larger system or organism. It 
is perfectly true that development is towards specialization 
and complexity; but the facts that can be adduced in 
support of this must be balanced with the facts that point 
back to societies or systems possessing a differentiation and 
specialization peculiar to themselves.1_ It would be safer to 
say that the process of development or evolution is from 
one system to another. 

Some important developments may preferably be re- 
garded as alternations, or as extreme forms of transition 
which are otherwise so normal as not to attract attention. 
Such, for example, is the change from happy (or confident) 
to gloomy (and pessimistic) types of religion. Some writers 
find evidence enough to prove that primitive man must 


-1 For example, the dichotomies good and bad, the sacred and profane, 
and the supernatural and natural are clearly recognized, but the contents 
are differently arranged. 


hi INTRODUCTION 


have lived in a state of fear, oppressed by unknown terrors ; 
whereas Robertson Smith is more concerned with the creative 
moments, the confidence and assurance which make for 
progressive development (see p. 519 sq.). Again, while it 
is indubitably suggestive to conceive of an absolute develop- 
ment from the ‘“ childhood ” of humanity to its adolescence 
or maturity (p. 257), there is an increase or growth of con- 
sciousness which is of immense importance for the history 
of separate peoples or of individuals, and this in turn differs 
qualitively from many less epoch-making changes. The 
transition from the ‘natural’ to the “conscious ”’ state 
will mark eras; but it is precisely the new awakening, 
awareness, and rebirth which cause discontinuity and shatter 
facile theories of a continuous development. 

The “childish unconsciousness” of inexorable laws 
(p. 257) is, unfortunately, by no means confined to primitive 
peoples, but it is only another example of a perfectly in- 
telligible statement which is extremely helpful, though its 
limitations are evident. It is legitimate to speak of the 
“triumph of the gods over the demons ” (p. 122), or to say 
that gods “ become ”’ demons, or that Baal was “ changed ” 
from a god of rain to one of springs, or even that totems 
‘“become’”’ gods. The words express intelligibly enough 
certain vicissitudes in ideas concerning gods or supernatural 
beings; but it is necessary to observe that this simple 
terminology is really hindering more fruitful ways of handling 
the events in the world of thought, and that the alternative 
to this ‘‘ mythology ” would take us away from Comparative 
Religion to a department of Mental Science.? 


1 This is not to say that the “ evolutionary ’’ fagon de penser is wrong, 
but that it stands in need of a more careful application. 

2 Instinctively, and surely with some justification, we said at the be- 
ginning of this Introduction that The Religion of the Semites “ grew out ”’ 
of certain preliminary work; but the process, it will now be seen, is much 
more complex and difficult to describe. On the other hand, the more 


INTRODUCTION hii 


Next we observe that Robertson Smith’s main theories 
have far-reaching implications which have yet to be worked 
out. His theory of the communion of gods and men leads 
back to the “ naturally holy,” to an inherent sanctity which 
is more primary than any process of sanctification. The 
unity of gods and men is primary, the unity is always being 
broken, and the compact or covenant is secondary. The 
unity is potential, and the rite which actualizes it really 
cements it afresh. The facts of aberration and deterioration, 
and the consciousness of a higher ideal from which one has 
lapsed, have gone to create the conception of a “ Fall’ as 
some original event in human history, as distinct from the 
many occasions when one is painfully conscious of one’s 
lapses and of the terrible difference between the ordinary 
self and the harmony which, in theistic experience, is the 
fellowship of God and Man. Another similar translation of 
psychological experience into an historical event is the 
“Primitive Revelation.’’ Without the consciousness of the 
Holy or Sacred there could be neither religion of social 
importance nor any great steps in the development of religion ; 
but inasmuch as every experience of a Sacred Power will be 
determined by contemporary conditions of knowledge, 
mode of life, and so forth, the farther back we travel in 
human history, the more difficult is it to imagine the content 
of prehistoric religion. And though, from the solely in- 
tellectual point of view, “God” is also a methodological 
necessity and prior to all things, the meaning it had for the 
most primitive social-religious cult can be set down only in 
the most abstract terms. 

We may agree with Robertson Smith that the terrestrial 
Baal is older than the cosmic, for ideas of the remote are 


tangible and intelligible cases of development, such as the genesis of Robert- 
son Smith’s volume, may perhaps enable one to apprehend and illustrate 
those which are more complicated (cf. p. 499, near foot), and to discover 
that a similar sort of process rules throughout. 


liv INTRODUCTION 


based upon a knowledge of the near. An experience of a 
transcendent power will bring about the development of the 
positive knowledge of the day ; but such an experience will, 
in the first instance, be limited by ordinary experience. 
Ideas concerning the gods are influenced by men who them- 
selves have been influenced by transcendent experiences ; 
men have learnt that they must imitate the gods, but they 
have also had to learn what it was they had to imitate. A 
curious complexity manifests itself as we follow the mutual 
interaction of the religious and the non-religious spheres of 
life and thought; but the facts of social development and 
the facts of religious experience, when taken together, point 
to a development from the totem-stage upwards by the side 
of a gradually deepening theism under the influence of out- 
standing men and their more “ ethical ”’ ideas and “‘ anthro- 
pomorphic” type of religion (see p. 670). In a word, the 
data of “‘ theistic ’’ development do not by any means exclude 
Robertson Smith’s theory which takes back sacrifice to the 
“theriomorphic ” totem-stage. 

His theory of the unity of group and its god has another 
very important issue. This group-unit has its ordinary, 
secular or ‘‘ profane ’’ interests, and it can therefore be said 
that the social system includes within itself both the “ sacred ”’ 
(e.g. the gods, sacred ceremonies, etc.) and the “secular.” 
The social group is a practical working system, a “ natural ” 
one, and the god and other supernatural beings form a 
“natural ”’ part of it. Indeed, so much so is this the case 
that there is a tendency for men to take their gods for granted 
and the result is detrimental to the religious and social 
development of the group. The occasions when the group 
and gods come together, and usually for the practical pur- 
poses of life, are specifically “ sacred,’’ and—psychologically 
—they are essentially different from the “secular,” even as 
the “sacred”? and “secular” states of the individual are 


INTRODUCTION lv 


two essentially different phases in one and the same in- 
dividual. Hence the gods are a “ natural ”’ part of the social 
unit. But they are also “supernatural”; and at a higher 
stage of development it becomes more clear that the god 
is a natural part of the natural environment, and therefore 

“immanent.” At the same time, he is felt to be on another 
and higher plane of existence, and the gulf between him 
and man makes him “transcendent.” To the genuine 
theist God is a Transcendent Being, but He is also a 
natural part of the Universe (i.e. of the ultimate whole 
of which man knows only a part). Hence there are two 
senses of the “natural ’—(a) that which is opposed to the 
supernatural, and (6) that which includes this dichotomy ; 
and already in the primitive religions of the practical group- 
unit of gods and men there are implicit those paradoxical 
facts of personal experience which are fundamental for 
theology. 

_. Analysis takes us back to personal experiences of a 
religious or spiritual order; but no less to impersonal pro- 
cesses which are self-vindicating, a power or a mechanism 
which men use or misuse, and agencies such that the failure 
to do right or the deed that is positively wrong has inevitable 
consequences. Again, we are led back to single origins; 
whence it comes to pass that religion is very often supposed 
to be derived from a single factor. But one also gets back 
to complementary ideas: Transcendence and Immanence, 
Rights and Duties; they are dynamic, and upon them our 
conception of the typical working social-religious unit can 
be constructed.!. The familiar processes of scission, isolation, 
and disintegration, which we so readily trace in history, 
point back to a system; and a working social system can 
be regarded as a system of interrelated sentiments, ideas, 
and aims. With all this, however, it does not follow that 


1 See Encyc. of Religion and Ethics, art. ‘‘ Religion,” §§ 29, 31 (1). 


lvi INTRODUCTION 


the ideal system which we logically construct existed ; but 
the system so constructed forms an ideal type whereby to 
evaluate social religious facts.! 

Now in the course of differentiation of society and thought, 
new structures—whether sects or theories—are frequently 
built upon the narrowest bases, and at this point the question 
arises whether Robertson Smith has not been guilty of a 
gross methodological error in the use he has made of Nilus’s 
Saracens. The student who is already acquainted with The 
Religion of the Semites will be aware of the prominence which 
is given to them and their bloody rite. Since Smith’s day 
a little quiet fun has sometimes been poked at his Saracens, 
and we have to meet a typical criticism expressed in Lagrange’s 
words that the rite is admittedly barbaric, but “c'est trop 
isolé pour qu’on tire de ce seul cas toute la théorie du sacrifice ”’ 
(Etudes, p. 258). In reply to this, we are entitled at the 
outset to ask whether it is sound method to start from the 
normal rites, or at least those which correspond to ordinary 
instincts (1b. p.259n.). Are we to cry, “‘ Mais cette sauvagerie 
n’a rien de religieux”? ? Are we to take our stand upon 
some definition: ‘‘ When I mention religion, 1 mean . . .” ? 
On the contrary, no science or philosophy of religion can 
start from any division into what is and what is not religious, 
even as science cannot at the outset rule out mongrels or 
weeds. 

Further, although human sacrifice has been common 
enough, Robertson Smith treats it as exceptional (p. 394) ; 
whereas old Nilus, however isolated, gives us ‘‘ a very typical 
embodiment of the main ideas that underlie Semitic sacri- 
fices ’ (p. 345). And this is entirely justified if we analyse 

1 Inevitably one passes from ‘‘ comparative” religion to the more 
theoretical treatment of the data; and the history of comparison in the 
world of organic life will warn us to avoid such an error as the single 


abstract generalized type conceived by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (EK. W. 
Hobson, T'he Domain of Natural Science, p. 385 sq.). 


INTRODUCTION lvii 


the rite and observe the parallels which can be found for 
every element. A more careful reading of The Religion of 
the Semites should have shown opponents that the com- 
munion-theory is not based upon and does not start from 
Nilus—as we have seen, it has a much profounder inception. 
The unprejudiced reader will discover for himself that it is 
part of a network of ideas which are common to mankind, 
even as every religion can be viewed as a particular structure 
of the numerous beliefs and practices which make up the 
world of religion. It must, of course, be granted that 
Robertson Smith has given every prominence to Nilus, but 
the value of his work does not rest upon Nilus, and he and his 
Saracens are no longer so vital. His evidence is still ex- 
tremely important, but we do not need it asa clue.t We are 
assured that “‘ even in its details it probably comes nearer ”’ 
the primitive form of Semitic sacrifice (see p. 345): that is 
to say, Robertson Smith, so far from starting from it, con- 
siders that he has found in it the most rudimentary embodi- 
ment of the main sacrificial ideas which he has discovered 
elsewhere. 

Late and isolated Nilus may be, but an advanced stage 
of culture never excludes gross barbaric ideas, or rites, either 
outside or—at certain periods at least—within ; nor does it 
exclude the emergence of “primitive” types of thought, 
however we may choose to evaluate them.? Hence while, 
on the one hand, the evidence of Nilus is an isolated example 
of a combination of tpyical ideas, human sacrifice, on the 
other hand, affords numerous examples of ideas which, for 


1 How a clue may come to be of secondary value is well seen in the 
literary criticism of the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua, where the 
difference in the Divine Names led to very important discoveries, which 
are of permanent value, whereas this particular criterion was soon found 
to be of relatively secondary importance. 

2 That is to say, the ‘‘ primitive” is barbaric or it is spiritual, and it 
is a false conception of evolution which tends to regard it as necessarily 
the former. 


lvili INTRODUCTION 


reasons given, are not representative of the main develop- 
ment of religion. And here we have to remember the 
essential difference between Robertson Smith and some of 
his critics: human sacrifice, licentious cults, and so forth 
abound, and—like what Renan said of the Arabic Lexicon— 
the student of comparative religion can pick and choose the 
evidence for the theory he prefers; but from first to last 
Smith is concerned with the factors that make for the pro- 
gressive development of religion, and he is distinguishing 
between a systematic arrangement of the mere data of religion 
and the crucial facts of the history of religion.+ 

Exceptional and isolated are also the peculiar ceremonies 
of the totem clans in Central Australia, which partly confirm 
Robertson Smith, while putting his problems in a new light 
(above, p. xl). They afford most rudimentary examples 
of the pregnant ideas that mark the higher religions—as 
Durkheim in particular has shown—and there is no necessity 
to suppose that they correspond to, or even in their details 
approximate primitive prehistoric cults. It seems impossible 
to conceive more primitive systems; and the totem cults 
bring to a head the problems of primitive religion in a way 
that is far more important for the Science of Religion than— 
and this must be admitted—for the ordinary theologian. 
The evidence is so remarkable as to demand some explana- 
tion. For, as ‘‘ Mana ”’ accounts for the unusual or abnormal 
(cf. p. 553), or as Religion is supposed, on one view, to fill 
the “ gaps ” in knowledge, so we are compelled to find a way 
of co-ordinating the more extraordinary phenomena of re- 


1 After all, Nilus is not quite isolated. Van Gennep (Totémisme, 
pp. 249 sgq.) cites from E. Doutté, Les‘ Aissdoua a Tlemcen (1900), who claims 
to have found a modern parallel. The evidence is certainly striking, and 
Van Gennep is hardly convincing when he disputes its value because of 
the interval of space and time which severs it from Nilus, and because the 
rite can be explained on the principles that actuate the brotherhood who 
practise it, 


INTRODUCTION lix 


ligion and the more ordinary. The fact that various unusual, 
superstitious, or even abnormal beliefs seem to satisfy tribes 
is as important as the fact that the animal or plant species is, 
for very rudimentary peoples, a sufficient embodiment of 
profound ideas. Indeed, totemism enlarges the range of 
facts upon which we base our inductions, it widens our con- 
ception of the development of human personality ; and it 
enables us to consider, on the one side, the place of rude 
stone cults in the development of religion, and, on the other, 
the relations between theriomorphic and anthropomorphic 
supernatural beings who stand in a personal relationship to 
men. Robertson Smith took totemism more seriously than 
most other workers in the field, and, to judge from the in- 
fluence this volume has had upon the study of religions, 
most would agree that his insight more than justified 
itself. 

There are phenomena in the history of religion that are of 
pre-eminent value to others than theologians. They raise 
questions which do not occur to the students of current 
theology and philosophy, but upon the answer to them the 
future development of theology and philosophy seems to rest. 
It commonly happens that as new religions arise they ignore— 
perhaps inevitably, perhaps rightly—beliefs and practices 
which had been of no little value and efficacy, and had been 
efficacious and “‘true”’ for normal men. But in religious as 
in other thought men will strike off on a new line, and only 
in course of time is it found necessary to come to terms with 
that which had been ignored, if not condemned. So, as 
regards the lengthy history of religion, when one has atten- 
tively read the work of Sir James Frazer on the sacred man 
and the slain god, or of MM. Hubert and Mauss on the function 
of sacrifice, or of M. Emile Durkheim on the significance of 
social religious systems for the vicissitudes of mental develop- 
ment, it is impossible to resist the conviction that, not only 


lx INTRODUCTION 


the great religions of history other than the “ highest,” but 
even the very rudimentary religions, with their naive ex- 
periences of the Universe, have something of permanent 
value to contribute to modern knowledge and western types 
of experience and thought (see pp. 683 sqq.). 

Robertson Smith’s insistence upon the social-religious 
unit, upon the working systems as distinct from less organized 
peoples—Pygmies and others, even with their “ Supreme 
Gods ’’—is entirely characteristic of the man who in his early 
years demanded a systematized theology. He fully realized 
the necessity for organizing knowledge—as befitted an 
Kditor of the Encyclopedia Britannica !—but he did not live 
to attempt the task of undertaking a fresh systematization 
of the results which he had reached. Such a task awaits 
the future. Questions arise concerning the relation between 
communion, fellowship, and the like (p. xlii sg. above), 
between totemic, totemistic, and theriomorphic cults, be- 
tween gods (of varying degree of divinity), heroes, and saints, 
between friendly and unfriendly supernatural beings, between 


99 ¢¢ 


“* religious,” ‘‘ magical,” and “‘ magico-religious ”’ beliefs and 
practices. This is no exaggerated statement of the task 
that already confronts the student of the religions; and 
as he proceeds to systematize his definitions he will discover 
that the Science of Religion is reaching out towards, we will 
not say a “ Theology,” but, an interpretation of the data of 
religion far more “‘ Catholic”? than even Robertson Smith 
himself divined. Nor is this all. Repeatedly the inter- 
pretation of the evidence can only be “ mystical,” in the 
sense that a sympathetic understanding of religious and 
mystical types of experience alone enables one man to 
interpret and another to test the interpretation. This will 
be one of the difficulties—perhaps one of the embarrassments 
—of the future, for there is much that is ambiguous in re- 
or is only subjectively so ; 


? 


ligion, that seems ‘‘ religious,’ 


INTRODUCTION Ix1 


and on this account less question-begging terms should 
perhaps be employed.! 

Our Theology and Philosophy, if not specifically Christian, 
is Western, whereas Robertson Smith combined the keenest 
Christian sympathies with a profound knowledge of Semitic, 
or rather Oriental, modes of thought—and the consequences 
were far-reaching. Prediction is idle work, but whereas the rise 
of Christianity led to the theology and philosophy which 
characterize western thought, the tendency of the study of 
the world’s religions is to lay new foundations upon which 
the thinkers and systematizers of the future will build. One 
need not commit oneself to the “‘ phenomenology of religion,” 
or any other specific school or tendency of to-day, but the 
deeper inquiry into the way in which we ourselves have come 
to think as we do and to hold the beliefs that we do, and of 
the relation between different types of thinking, is opening 
out new lines of research, and fashioning new and powerful 
tools for the future. More fundamental than any given 
religious or scientific inquiry is the inquiry into the processes 
of differentiation, development, and systematization of ideas, 
and at the present day the precise relationship between 
Religion and Science is of less primary importance than the 
critical study of the interrelation between religious and non- 
religious experience and expression. 

The Religion of the Semites, when we consider the author 
and his work, is a veritable symptom. Some there are who 
do not find it difficult to foreshadow the ‘‘ Decline of the 
West ”’: the point has been reached where all that is creative 
has exhausted itself, serious thought has found itself in a 


1 Thus, M. Pinard de la Boullaye (ii. p. 11 sg.; see p. xliv n., above) 
suggests the terms hierography (the history of religion), hierology (com- 
parative religion and scientific generalization of the data), and hierosophy 
(metaphysical speculation); cf. also Count Goblet d’Alviella (Ozford 
Congress of Religions, 1908, ii. p. 365), who proposes Mierography (analysis 
and description) and hierology (synthesis). 


|xii INTRODUCTION 


cul-de-sac, and the confidence which beheld a world picture, 
a scheme of history culminating in one’s own personal or 
national standpoint, has given place to the chill yet not 
unjust realization that a more objective survey of man, his 
history and his religion, must base its theology and philosophy 
upon a far wider synthesis. But Robertson Smith is con- 
cerned with the physiology rather than the morphology of 
cultures ; and, instinctively a prophet, he is dynamic, feeling 
out towards the future, to a Reformation, a Rebirth or a 
Renaissance. The past shows us dying and dead cultures, 
but also new developments and progress; and those who 
realize that vast movements in history le behind the Bible 
will agree that, although there can be no assurance that any 
particular line of development must be continued, there is no 
justification for the conviction that there can not be a further 
development embodying the best of all that has gone before 
and creating a new continuity with the past. And it may be 
claimed that when Robertson Smith, the theologian and the 
anthropologist, went down to primitive and ancient religion, 
he took up the past and carried it forward, indicating the 
lines upon which further progress might most fruitfully be 
made. 

A vast amount has been written upon Semitic and other 
religions, but the independence of his position is still astonish- 
ing. Much of the literature does not touch the central 
problems of religion. Much is out of sympathy with the 
mystical or transcendental element in religion, which it is 
crass obscurantism to reject and intellectual suicide to accept 
uncritically. Again, much ignores the religions at either end 
of the scale. Not as slavish copyists of what Robertson 
Smith wrote, but as sympathetic and critical students of the 
greatest of all subjects, can one find in his life and work a new 
source of inspiration. And since a man is more than his 
theories, and this man’s standpoint so eminently character- 


INTRODUCTION Ixiil 


istic, no more interesting subject for the study of personal 
evolution can well be found when we consider his life, his 
work, and his influence—for evolution in human personality 
and that in the world which the scientist has constructed 
cannot, on philosophical grounds, be ultimately separated. 


As explained in the Preface, Robertson Smith has been 
left to speak for himself, and for the new notes, which are 
printed apart by themselves, the present writer is entirely 
responsible. These notes give bibliographical information, 
and contain additional illustrative matter, especially from 
modern Palestine and the ancient surrounding civilizations. 
No attempt is made to refer to all available sources, the aim 
being merely to emphasize afresh the fact that Palestine and 
the Semites cannot be treated in isolation, and that the 
religion—or, as some would prefer to say, the religions—of 
the Semites: must be viewed in the light of our knowledge of 
religion in general. Accordingly, attention is drawn to the 
close interrelation between the lower and the higher religions, 
between various types of religious and related experiences, 
and between the religious and non-religious spheres of life 
and thought. Some notice is taken of criticisms of Robert- 
son Smith’s theories, and fuller evidence has been given for 
the different sorts of beliefs and practices expressing contact, 
fellowship, communion, or at-one-ment with the supernatural 
or divine. The “practical”? and often quasi-‘‘ magical ”’ 
element in religion has been illustrated, in view of its import- 
ance: for the development of ideas concerning man’s place 
in and control over Nature, and for the relationship between 
the “ physical’ and “ spiritual’? phases in the history of 

1 The reference is to the Right Hon. J. C. Smuts on the importance of 
‘* personology,” see Holism and Evolution (1926), pp. 284 sqqg. The present 
writer may perhaps be permitted to refer to his Study of Religions (1914), 


pp. 64 sqq., 338 sq., and his review of the Life of Robertson Smith in the 
Hibbert Journal, xi. p. 214. 


lxiv INTRODUCTION 


religion. The significance of group-units and systems has 
been developed, for the problem is not to explain the variation 
of belief and practice—this must be taken as given—but to 
co-ordinate the systematizing and regulating tendencies 
throughout the Cosmos. Further, as will have been seen 
in this Introduction, the immense importance of specifically 
‘religious ’’ data for studies which, in a sense, are “ non- 
religious’ can no longer be ignored, and the problem of 
“evolution ’’ in the world of thought has become of the 
first importance for the presentation of the data of religion. 

Owing partly to lack of space, archeological material 
has rarely been introduced ; the writer hopes to utilize it in 
his Schweich Lectures on The Religion of Palestine in the 
Inght of Archeology. Moreover, since the Second Edition of 
The Religion of the Semites omits on p. 414 a very striking 
paragraph which appeared in the First Edition, p. 393, on the 
death of the God-man and the “ germ” of John xvii. 19,1 it 
seemed undesirable to develop the bearing of comparative 
religion upon the interpretation of Christianity. But 
although Robertson Smith evidently preferred to omit the 
paragraph, his volume not merely opens out a treatment of 
religion more systematic than others which might be named, 
it also inaugurates a theoretical study of all religions, from 
the varieties of Christian belief and practice to the humblest 
cults of totemic and other rude communities, and it is, per- 
haps, no exaggeration to see in his work the foundation of 
the Science and Theory of Religion. 


STANLEY A. COOK. 
CAMBRIDGE, August 1927. 


1 On this omission, see also Sir James Frazer, in his essay on Robertson 
Smith, reprinted in The Gorgon’s Head and other Literary Pieces (1927), 
pp. 278-290. 


LECTURE If 


INTRODUCTION: THE SUBJECT AND THE METHOD OF 
ENQUIRY 


Tu subject before us is the religion of the Semitic peoples, 
that is, of the group of kindred nations, including the Arabs, 
the Hebrews and Pheenicians, the Arameans, the Baby- 
lonians and Assyrians, which in ancient times occupied the 
great Arabian Peninsula, with the more fertile lands of * 
Syria Mesopotamia and Irac, from the Mediterranean 
coast to the base of the mountains of Iran and Armenia. 
Among these peoples three of the great faiths of the 
world had their origin, so that the Semites must always 
have a peculiar interest for the student of the history of 
religion. Our subject, however, is not the history of the 
several religions that have a Semitic origin, but Semitic 
religion as a whole in its common features and general 
type. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are positive religions, 
that is, they did not grow up like the systems of ancient 
heathenism, under the action of unconscious forces operat- 
ing silently from age to age, but trace their origin to the 
teaching of great religious innovators, who spoke as the 
organs of a divine revelation, and deliberately departed 
from the traditions of the past. Behind these positive 


religions lies the old unconscious religious tradition, the 
1 


2 POSITIVE AND TRADITIONAL LECT. I. 


body of religious usage and belief which cannot be traced 
to the influence of individual minds, and was not propagated 
on individual authority, but formed part of that inheritance 
from the past into which successive generations of the 
Semitic race grew up as it were instinctively, taking it as 
a matter of course that they should believe and act as their 
fathers had done before them. The positive Semitic 
religions had to establish themselves on ground already 
occupied by these older beliefs and usages; they had to 
displace what they could not assimilate, and whether they 
rejected or absorbed the elements of the older religion, 
they had at every point to reckon with them and take up 
a definite attitude towards them. No positive religion that 
has moved men has been able to start with a tabula rasa, 
and express itself as if religion were beginning for the first 
time; in form, if not in substance, the new system must 
be in contact all along the line with the older ideas and 
practices which it finds in possession. A new scheme of 
faith can find a hearing only by appealing to religious 
instincts and susceptibilities that already exist in its 
audience, and it cannot reach these without taking account 
of the traditional forms in which all religious feeling is 
embodied, and without speaking a language which men 
accustomed to these old forms can understand. Thus to 
comprehend a system of positive religion thoroughly, to 
understand it in its historical origin and form as well as 
in its abstract principles, we must know the traditional 
religion that preceded it. It is from this point of view 
that I invite you to take an interest in the ancient religion 
of the Semitic peoples; the matter is not one of mere 
antiquarian curiosity, but has a direct and important bear- 
ing on the great problem of the origins of the spiritual 
religion of the Bible. Let me illustrate this by an example. 
You know how large a part of the teaching of the New 


ed) 


LECT. I. RELIGION AMONG THE SEMITES 


Testament and of all Christian theology turns on the ideas 
of sacrifice and priesthood. In what they have to say on 
these heads the New Testament writers presuppose, as the 
basis of their argument, the notion of sacrifice and priest- 
hood current among the Jews and embodied in the 
ordinances of the Temple. But, again, the ritual of the 
Temple was not in its origin an entirely novel thing; the 
precepts of the Pentateuch did not create a priesthood and 
a sacrificial service on an altogether independent basis, but 
only reshaped and remodelled, in accordance with a more 
spiritual doctrine, institutions of an older type, which in 
many particulars were common to the Hebrews with their 
heathen neighbours. Every one who reads the Old Testa- 
ment with attention is struck with the fact that the origin 
and rationale of sacrifice are nowhere fully explained; that 
sacrifice is an essential part of religion is taken for granted, 
as something which is not a doctrine peculiar to Israel 
but is universally admitted and acted on without as well as 
within the limits of the chosen people. Thus, when we 
wish thoroughly to study the New Testament doctrine of 
sacrifice, we are carried back step by step till we reach a 
point where we have to ask what sacrifice meant, not to 
the old Hebrews alone, but to the whole circle of nations 
of which they formed a part. By considerations of this 
sort we are led to the conclusion that no one of the religions 
of Semitic origin which still exercise so great an influence 
on the lives of men can be completely understood without 
enquiry into the older traditional religion of the Semitic 
race. 

You observe that in this argument I take it for 
granted that, when we go back to the most ancient 
religious conceptions and usages of the Hebrews, we shall 
find them to be the common property of a group of 
kindred peoples, and not the exclusive possession of the 


4 MEANING OF THE LECT. L 
tribes of Israel. The proof that this is so will appear 
more clearly in the sequel; but, indeed, the thing will 
hardly be denied by any one who has read the Bible with 
care. In the history of old Israel before the captivity, 
nothing comes out more clearly than that the mass of the 
people found the greatest difficulty in keeping their 
national religion distinct from that of the surrounding 
nations. Those who had no grasp of spiritual principles, 
and knew the religion of Jehovah only as an affair of 
inherited usage, were not conscious of any great difference 
between themselves and their heathen neighbours, and fell 
into Canaanite and other foreign practices with the greatest 
facility. The significance of this fact is manifest if we 
consider how deeply the most untutored religious sensi- 
bilities are shocked by any kind of innovation. Nothing 
appeals so strongly as religion to the conservative instincts ; 
and conservatism is the habitual attitude of Orientals 
The whole history of Israel is unintelligible if we suppose 
that the heathenism against which the prophets contended 
was a thing altogether alien to the religious traditions of 
the Hebrews. In principle there was all the difference in 
the world between the faith of Isaiah and that of an 
idolater. But the difference in principle, which seems so 
clear to us, was not clear to the average Judean, and the 
reason of this was that it was obscured by the great 
similarity in many important points of religious tradition 
and ritual practice. The conservatism which refuses to 
look at principles, and has an eye only for tradition and 
usage, was against the prophets, and had no sympathy with 
their efforts to draw a sharp line between the religion of 
Jehovah and that of the foreign gods. This is a proof 
that what I may call the natural basis of Israel’s 
worship was very closely akin to that of the neighbouring 
cults. 


LECT. 1. WORD SEMITIC 5 


The conclusion on this point which is suggested by the 
facts of Old Testament history, may be accepted the more 
readily because it is confirmed by presumptive arguments 
of another kind. Traditional religion is handed down from 
father to child, and therefore is in great measure an affair 
of race. Nations sprung from a common stock will have 
a common inheritance of traditional belief and usage in 
things sacred as well as profane, and thus the evidence 
that the Hebrews and their neighbours had a large common 
stock of religious tradition falls in with the evidence 
which we have from other sources, that in point of race 
the people of Israel were nearly akin to the heathen 
nations of Syria and Arabia. The populations of this 
whole region constitute a well-marked ethnic unity, a fact 
which is usually expressed by giving to them the common 
uame of Semites. The choice of this term was originally 
suggested by the tenth chapter of Genesis, in which most 
of the nations of the group with which we are concerned 
are represented as descended from Shem the son of Noah. 
But though modern historians and ethnographers have 
borrowed a name from the book of Genesis, it must be 
understood that they do not define the Semitic group as 
coextensive with the list of nations that are there reckoned 
to the children of Shem. Most recent interpreters are 
disposed to regard the classification of the families of 
mankind given in Genesis x. as founded on principles 
geographical or political rather than ethnographical; the 
Pheenicians and other Canaanites, for example, are made 
to be children of Ham and near cousins of the Egyptians. 
This arrangement corresponds to historical facts, for, at a 
period anterior to the Hebrew conquest, Canaan was for 
centuries an Egyptian dependency, and Pheenician religion 
and civilisation are permeated by Egyptian influence. 
But ethnographically the Canaanites were akin to the 


6 LANGUAGE AS A LECT. 1 
Arabs and Syrians, and they spoke a language which is 
hardly different from Hebrew. On the other hand, Elam 
and Lud, that is Susiana and Lydia, are called children of 
Shem, though there is no reason to think that in either 
country the mass of the population belonged to the same 
stock as the Syrians and Arabs. Accordingly it must be 
remembered that when modern scholars use the term 
Semitic, they do not speak as interpreters of Scripture, but 
include all peoples whose distinctive ethnical characters 
assign them to the same group with the Hebrews, Syrians 
and Arabs. 

The scientific definition of an ethnographical group 
depends on a variety of considerations ; for direct historical 
evidence of an unimpeachable kind as to the original seats 
and kindred of ancient peoples is not generally to be 
had. The defects of historical tradition must therefore 
be supplied by observation, partly of inherited physica 
characteristics, and partly of mental characteristics, habits 
and attainments such as are usually transmitted from 
parent to child. Among the indirect criteria of kinship 
between nations, the most obvious, and the one which has 
hitherto been most carefully studied, is the criterion of 
language; for it is observed that the languages of man- 
kind form a series of natural groups, and that within each 
group it is possible to arrange the several languages which 
it contains in what may be called a genealogical order, 
according to degrees of kinship. Now it may not always 
be true that people of the same or kindred speech are as 
closely related by actual descent as they seem to be from 
the language they speak; a Gaelic tribe, for example, may 
forget. their ancient speech, and learn to speak a Teutonic 
dialect, without ceasing to be true Gaels by blood. But, 
in general, large groups of men do not readily change their 
language, but go on from generation to generation speaking 


ee a a a 


LECT. 1, CRITERION OF RACE 7 


the ancestral dialect, with such gradual modification as the 
lapse of time brings about. Asa rule, therefore, the classi- 
fication of mankind by language, at least when applied to 
large masses, will approach pretty closely to a natural classi- 
fication; and in a large proportion of cases the language 
of a mixed race will prove on examination to be that of 
the stock whose blood is predominant. Where this is not 
the case, where a minority has imposed its speech on a 
majority, we may safely conclude that it has done so in 
virtue of a natural pre-eminence, a power of shaping 
lower races in its own mould, which is not confined to the 
sphere of language, but extends to all parts of life. Where 
we find unity of language, we can at least say with 
certainty that we are dealing with a group of men who are 
subject to common influences of the most subtle and far- 
reaching kind; and where unity of speech has prevailed 
for many generations, we may be sure that the continued 
action of these influences has produced great uniformity of 
physical and mental type. When we come to deal with 
groups which have long had separate histories, and whose 
languages are therefore not identical but only cognate, the 
case is not so strong; but, on the whole, it remains true 
that the stock which is strong enough, whether by numbers 
or by genius, to impress its language on a nation, must also 
exercise a predominant influence on the national type in 
other respects; and to this extent the classification of 
races by language must be called natural and not artificial. 
Especially is this true for ancient times, when the absence ~ 
of literature, and particularly of religious books, made it 
much more difficult than it has been in recent ages for a 
new language to establish itself in a race to which it was 
originally foreign. All Egypt now speaks Arabic—a 
Semitic tongue—and yet the population is very far from 
having assimilated itself to the Arabic type. But this 


8 UNITY AND HOMOGENEITY LECT. 1. 
could not have happened without the Coran and the 
religion of the Coran. 

The Semitic nations are classed together on the ground 
of similarity of language; but we have every reason to 
recognise their linguistic kinship as only one manifestation 
of a very marked general unity of type. The unity is 
not perfect; it would not, for example, be safe to make 
generalisations about the Semitic character from the 
Arabian nomads, and to apply them to the ancient 
Babylonians. And for this there are probably two reasons. 
On the one hand, the Semite of the Arabian desert and 
the Semite of the Babylonian alluvium lived under alto- 
gether different physical and moral conditions; the 
difference of environment is as complete as possible. And, 
on the other hand, it is pretty certain that the Arabs of 
the desert have been from time immemorial a race 
practically unmixed, while the Babylonians, and other 
members of the same family settled on the fringes of the 
Semitic land, were in all probability largely mingled with 
the blood of other races, and underwent a corresponding 
modification of type. 

But when every allowance is made for demonstrable or 
possible variations of type within the Semitic field, it still 
remains true that the Semites form a singularly well 
marked and relatively speaking a very homogeneous group. 
So far as language goes the evidence to this effect is parti- 
cularly strong. The Semitic tongues are so much alike 
that their affinity is recognised even by the untrained 
observer ; and modern science has little difficulty in tracing 
them back to a single primitive speech, and determining 
in a general way what the features of that speech were. 
On the other hand, the differences between these languages 
and those spoken by other adjacent races are so funda- 
mental and so wide, that little or nothing can be affirmed 


; 
| 
| 
; 


LECT. 1 - OF THE SEMITIC RACE 9 


with certainty as to the relation of the Semitic tongues to 
other linguistic stocks. Their nearest kinship seems to be 
with the languages of North Africa, but even here the 
common features are balanced by profound differences. 
The evidence of language therefore tends to show that the 
period during which the original and common Semitic 
speech existed apart, and developed its peculiar characters 
at a distance from languages of other stocks, must have 
been very long in comparison with the subsequent period 
during which the separate branches of the Semitic stock, 
such as Hebrew Aramaic and Arabic, were isolated from 
one another and developed into separate dialects. Or, to 
draw the historical inference from this, it would appear 
that before the Hebrews, the Arameans, and the Arabs 
spread themselves over widely distant seats, and began 
vheir course of separate national development, there must 
have been long ages in which the ancestors of all these 
nations lived together and spoke with one tongue. And 
as this was in the infancy of mankind, the period of human 
history in which individuality went for nothing, and all 
common influences had a force which we moderns can with 
difficulty conceive, the various swarms which ultimately 
hived off from the common stock and formed the Semitic 
nations known to history, must have carried with them a 
strongly marked race character, and many common posses- 
sions of custom and idea, besides their common language. 
And further, let us observe that the dispersion of the 
Semitic nations was never carried so far as the dispersion 
of the Aryans. If we leave out of account settlements 
made over the seas,—the South Arabian colonies in East 
Africa, and the Phcenician colonies on the coasts and isles 
of the Mediterranean,—we find that the region of Semitic 
occupation is continuous and compact. Its great immov- 
able centre is the vast Arabian peninsula, a region naturally 


10 UNITY AND HOMOGENEITY LECT. 1 


isolated, and in virtue of its physical characters almost 
exempt from immigration or change of inhabitants. From 
this central stronghold, which the predominant opinion of 
modern scholars designates as the probable starting-point 
of the whole Semitic dispersion, the region of Semitic 
speech spreads out round the margin of the Syrian desert 
till it strikes against great natural boundaries, the Mediter- 
ranean, Monnt Taurus, and the mountains of Armenia and 
Iran. From the earliest dawn of history all that lies 
within these limits was fully occupied by Semitic tribes 
speaking Semitic dialects, and the compactness of this 
settlement must necessarily have tended to maintain uni- 
formity of type. The several Semitic nations, when they 
were not in direct contact with one another, were divided 
not by alien populations, but only by the natural barriers 
of mountain and desert. These natural barriers, indeed, 
were numerous, and served to break up the race into a 
number of small tribes or nations; but, like-the mountains 
of Greece, they were not so formidable as to prevent the 
separate states from maintaining a great deal of intercourse, 
which, whether peaceful or warlike, tended to perpetuate 
the original community of type. Nor was the operation 
of these causes disturbed in ancient times by any great 
foreign immigration. The early Egyptian invasions of Syria 
were not followed by colonisation ; and while the so-called 
Hittite monuments, which have given rise to so much 
speculation, may afford evidence that a non-Semitic people 
from Asia Minor at one time pushed its way into Northern 
Syria, it is pretty clear that the Hittites of the Bible, wa. 
the non-Aramaic communities of Ccele-Syria, were a branch 
of the Canaanite stock, though they may for a time have 
been dominated by a non-Semitic aristocracy. At one 
time it was not uncommon to represent the Philistines as 
a non-Semitic people, but it is now generally recognised 


LECT. I. OF THE SEMITIC RACE 1] 


that the arguments for this view are inadequate, and that, 
though they came into Palestine from across the sea, from 
Caphtor, ze. probably from Crete, they were either mainly 
of Semitic blood, or at least were already thoroughly Semi- 
tised at the time of their immigration, alike in speech and 
in religion. 

Coming down to later times, we find that the Assyrian 
Babylonian and Persian conquests made no considerable 
change in the general type of the population of the Semitic 
lands. National and tribal landmarks were removed, and 
there were considerable shiftings of population within the 
Semitic area, but no great incursion of new populations of 
alien stock. In the Greek and Roman periods, on the 
contrary, a large foreign element was introduced into the 
towns of Syria; but as the immigration was practically 
confined to the cities, hardly touching the rural districts, its 
effects in modifying racial type were, it would seem, of a 
very transitory character. For in Hastern cities the death- 
rate habitually exceeds the birth-rate, and the urban 
population is maintained only by constant recruital from 
the country, so that it is the blood of the peasantry which 
ultimately determines the type of the population. Thus it 
is to be explained that, after the Arab conquest of Syria, 
the Greek element in the population rapidly disappeared. 
Indeed, one of the most palpable proofs that the populations 
of all the old Semitic lands possessed a remarkable homo- 
geneity of character, is the fact that in them, and in them 
alone, the Arabs and Arab influence took permanent root. 
The Moslem conquests extended far beyond these limits ; 
but, except in the old Semitic countries, Islam speedily took 
new shapes, and the Arab dominations soon gave way before 
the reaction of the mass of its foreign subjects. 

Thus the whole course of history, from the earliest date 
to which authentic knowledge extends down to the time ot 


12 THE SEMITES OF LECT. L 
the decay of the Caliphate, records no great permanent 
disturbance of population to affect the constancy of the 
Semitic type within its original seats, apart from the 
temporary Hellenisation of the great cities already spoken 
of. Such disturbances as did take place consisted partly 
of mere local displacements among the settled Semites, 
partly, and in a much greater degree, of the arrival and 
establishment in the cultivated lands of successive hordes 
of Semitic nomads from the Arabian wilderness, which on 
their settlement found themselves surrounded by popula- 
tions so nearly of their own type that the complete 
fusion of the old and new inhabitants was effected without 
difficulty, and without modification of the general character 
of the race. If at any point in its settlements, except 
along the frontiers, the Semitic blood was largely modified 
by foreign admixture, this must have taken place in 
prehistoric times, or by fusion with other races which 
may have occupied the country before the arrival of the 
Semites. How far anything of this sort actually happened 
can only be matter of conjecture, for the special hypotheses 
which have sometimes been put forth—as, for example, that 
there was a considerable strain of pre-Semitic blood in the 
Pheenicians and Canaanites—rest on presumptions of no 
conclusive sort. What is certain is that the Semitic 
settlements in Asia were practically complete at the first 
dawn of history, and that the Semitic blood was constantly 
reinforced, frem very early times, by fresh immigrations 
from the desert. There is hardly another part of the 
world where we have such good historical reasons for 
presuming that linguistic affinity will prove a safe indica- 
tion of affinity in race, and in general physical and mental 
type. And this presumption is not belied by the results 
of nearer enquiry. Those who have busied themselves 
with the history and literature of the Semitic peoples, bear 


LECT. 1. BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 13 


uniform testimony to the close family likeness that runs 
through them all. 

It is only natural that this homogeneity of type appears 
to be modified on the frontiers of the Semitic field. To 
the West, if we leave the transmarine colonies out of view, 
natural conditions drew a sharp line of local demarcation 
between the Semites and their alien neighbours. The Red 
Sea and the desert north of it formed a geographical barrier, 
which was often crossed by the expansive force of the 
Semitic race, but which appears to have effectually checked 
the advance into Asia of African populations. But on the 
East, the fertile basin of the Euphrates and Tigris seems in 
ancient as in modern times to have been a meeting-place 
of races. The preponderating opinion of Assyriologists is 
to the effect that the civilisation of Assyria and Babylonia 
was not purely Semitic, and that the ancient population of 
these parts contained a large pre-Semitic element, whose 
influence is especially to be recognised in religion and in 
the sacred literature of the cuneiform records. 

If this be so, it is plain that the cuneiform material 
must be used with caution in our enquiry into the type of 
traditional religion characteristic of the ancient Semites. 
That Babylonia is the best starting-point for a compara- 
tive study of the sacred beliefs and practices of the Semitic 
peoples, is an idea which has lately had some vogue, and 
which at first sight appears plausible on account of the 
great antiquity of the monumental evidence. But, in 
matters of this sort, ancient and primitive are not 
synonymous terms; and we must not look for the most 
primitive form of Semitic faith in a region where society 
was not primitive. In Babylonia, it would seem, society 
and religion alike were based on a fusion of two races, and 
so were not primitive but complex. Moreover, the official 
system of Babylonian and Assyrian religion, as it is known 


14 SOURCES AND METHOD LECT. I 


to us from priestly texts and public inscriptions, bears clear 
marks of being something more than a popular traditional 
faith ; it has been artificially moulded by priestcraft and 
statecraft in much the same way as the official religion of 
Egypt; that is to say, it is in great measure an artificial 
combination, for imperial purposes, of elements drawn from 
a number of local worships. In all probability the actual 
religion of the masses was always much simpler than the 
official system; and in later times it would seem that, both 
in religion and in race, Assyria was little different from the 
adjacent Aramean countries. These remarks are not meant 
to throw doubt on the great importance of cuneiform studies 
for the history of Semitic religion ; the monumental data 
are valuable for comparison with what we know of the 
faith and worship of other Semitic peoples, and peculiarly 
valuable because, in religion as in other matters, the 
civilisation of the Euphrates-Tigris valley exercised a great; 
historical influence on a large part of the Semitic field. 
But the right point of departure for a general study of 
Semitic religion must be sought in regions where, though 
our knowledge begins at a later date, it refers to a simpler 
state of society, and where accordingly the religious 
phenomena revealed to us are of an origin less doubtful and 
a character less complicated. In many respects the religion 
of heathen Arabia, though we have little information con- 
cerning it that is not of post-Christian date, displays an 
extremely primitive type, corresponding to the primitive 
and unchanging character of nomadic life. With what 
may be gathered from this source we must compare, above 
all, the invaluable notices, preserved in the Old Testament, 
of the religion of the small Palestinian states before their 
conquest by the great empires of the Hast. For this 
period, apart from the Assyrian monuments and a few 
precious fragments of other evidence from inscriptions, we 


LECT. I. | OF THE ENQUIRY 15 
have no contemporary documents outside the Bible. At a 
later date the evidence from monuments is multiplied, and 
Greek literature begins to give important aid; but by 
this time also we have reached the period of religious 
syncretism—the period, that is, when different faiths and 
worships began to react on one another, and produce 
new and complex forms of religion. Here, therefore, we 
have to use the same precautions that are called for in 
dealing with the older syncretistic religion of Babylonia 
and Assyria; it is only by careful sifting and comparison 
that we can separate between ancient use and modern 
innovation, between the old religious inheritance of the 
Semites and things that came in from without. 

Let it be understood from the outset that we have 
not the materials for anything like a complete com- 
parative history of Semitic religions, and that nothing of 
the sort will be attempted in these Lectures. But a careful 
study and comparison of the various sources is sufficient 
to furnish a tolerably accurate view of a series of general 
features, which recur with striking uniformity in all parts 
of the Semitic field, and govern the evolution of faith and 
worship down to a late date. These widespread and 
permanent features form the real interest of Semitic 
religion to the philosophical student; it was in them, 
and not in the things that vary from place to place and 
from time to time, that the strength of Semitic religion 
lay, and it is to them therefore that we must look for help 
in the most important practical application of our studies, 
for light on the great question of the relation of the 
positive Semitic religions to the earlier faith of the race. 

Before entering upon the particulars of our enquiry, I 
must still detain you with a few words about the method 
and order of investigation that seem to be prescribed by 
the nature of the subject. To get a true and well-defined 


16 SOURCES AND METHOD LECT. I 


picture of the type of Semitic religion, we must not only 
study the parts separately, but must have clear views of 
the place and proportion of each part in its relation to 
the whole. And here we shall go very far wrong if 
we take it for granted that what is the most important 
and prominent side of religion to us was equally important 
in the ancient society with which we are to deal. In 
connection with every religion, whether ancient or modern, 
we find on the one hand certain beliefs, and on the other 
certain institutions ritual practices and rules of conduct. 
Our modern habit is to look at religion from the side of 
belief rather than of practice; for, down to comparatively 
recent times, almost the only forms of religion seriously 
studied in Europe have been those of the various Christian 
Churches, and all parts of Christendom are agreed that 
ritual is important only in connection with its inter- 
pretation. Thus the study of religion has meant mainly 
the study of Christian beliefs, and instruction in religion 
has habitually begun with the creed, religious duties 
being presented to the learner as flowing from the 
dogmatic truths he is taught to accept. All this seems 
to us so much a matter of course that, when we approach 
some strange or antique religion, we naturally assume 
that here also our first business is to search for a creed, 
and find in it the key to ritual and practice. But the 
antique religions had for the most part no creed; they 
consisted entirely of institutions and practices. No doubt 
men will not habitually follow certain practices without 
attaching a meaning to them; but as a rule we find that 
while the practice was rigorously fixed, the meaning 
attached to it was extremely vague, and the same rite was 
explained by different people in different ways, without 
any question of orthodoxy or heterodoxy arising in conse- 
quence. In ancient Greece, for example, certain things 


LECT. 1. OF THE ENQUIRY 17 
were done at a temple, and people were agreed that it 
would be impious not to do them. But if you had asked 
why they were done, you would probably have had several 
mutually contradictory explanations from different persons, 
and no one would have thought it a matter of the least 
religious importance which of these you chose to adopt. 
Indeed, the explanations offered would not have been of 
a kind to stir any strong feeling; for in most cases they 
would have been merely different stories as to the circum- 
stances under which the rite first came to be established, 
by the command or by the direct example of the god. 
The rite, in short, was connected not with a dogma but 
with a myth. 

In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place 
of dogma; that is, the sacred lore of priests and people, * 
so far as it does not consist of mere rules for the perform- 
ance of religious acts, assumes the form of stories about 
the gods; and these stories afford the only explanation 
that is offered of the precepts of religion and the pre- 
scribed rules of ritual. But, strictly speaking, this 
mythology was no essential part of ancient religion, for 
it had no sacred sanction and no binding force on the 
worshippers. The myths connected with individual sanc- 
tuaries and ceremonies were merely part of the apparatus 
of the worship; they served to excite the fancy and 
sustain the interest of the worshipper; but he was often 
offered a choice of several accounts of the same thing, 
and, provided that he fulfilled the ritual with accuracy, 
no one cared what he believed about its origin. Belief 
in a certain series of myths was neither obligatory as a 
part of true religion, nor was it supposed that, by believing, 
aman acquired religious merit and conciliated the favour 
of the gods. What was obligatory or meritorious was the 
exact performance of certain sacred acts prescribed by 

2 


18 THE DEPENDENCE OF LECT. I, 


religious tradition. This being so, it follows that mythology 
ought not to take the prominent place that is too often 
assigned to it in the scientific study of ancient faiths. So 
far as myths consist of explanations of ritual, their value 
is altogether secondary, and it may be affirmed with con- 
fidence that in almost every case the myth was derived 
from the ritual, and not the ritual from the myth; for the 
ritual was fixed and the myth was variable, the ritual was 
obligatory and faith in the myth was at the discretion of 
the worshipper. Now by far the largest part of the myths 
of antique religions are connected with the ritual of par- 
ticular shrines, or with the religious observances of par- 
ticular tribes and districts. In all such cases it is probable, 
in most cases it is certain, that the myth is merely the 
explanation of a religious usage; and ordinarily it is such 
an explanation as could not have arisen till the original 
sense of the usage had more or less fallen into oblivion. 
As a rule the myth is no explanation of the origin of the 
ritual to any one who does not believe it to be a narrative 
of real occurrences, and the boldest mythologist will not 
believe that. But if it be not true, the myth itself 
requires to be explained, and every principle of philosophy 
and common sense demands that the explanation be sought, 
not in arbitrary allegorical theories, but in the actual facts 
of ritual or religious custom to which the myth attaches. 
The conclusion is, that in the study of ancient religions we 
must begin, not with myth, but with ritual and traditional 
usage. 

Nor can it be fairly set against this conclusion, that 
there are certain myths which are not mere explanations 
of traditional practices, but exhibit the beginnings of larger 
religious speculation, or of an attempt to systematise and 
reduce to order the motley variety of local worships and 
beliefs. For in this case the secondary character of the 


LECT. 1. MYTH ON RITUAL 19 


myths is still more clearly marked. They are either pro- 
ducts of early philosophy, reflecting on the nature of the 
universe ; or they are political in scope, being designed to 
supply a thread of union between the various worships of 
groups, originally distinct, which have been united into 
one social or political organism ; or, finally, they are due 
to the free play of epic imagination. But philosophy 
politics and poetry are something more, or something less, 
than religion pure and simple. 

There can be no doubt that, in the later stages of 
ancient religions, mythology acquired an increased import- 
ance. In the struggle of heathenism with scepticism on 
the one hand and Christianity on the other, the supporters 
of the old traditional religion were driven to search for 
ideas of a modern cast, which they could represent as the 
true inner meaning of the traditional rites. To this end 
they laid hold of the old myths, and applied to them an 
allegorical system of interpretation. Myth interpreted by 
the aid of allegory became the favourite means of infusing 
a new significance into ancient forms. But the theories 
thus developed are the falsest of false guides as to the 
original meaning of the old religions. 

On the other hand, the ancient myths taken in their 
natural sense, without allegorical gloss, are plainly of great 
importance as testimonies to the views of the nature of the 
gods that were prevalent when they were formed. For 
though the mythical details had no dogmatic value and no 
binding authority over faith, it is to be supposed that 
nothing was put into a myth which people at that time 
were not prepared to believe without offence. But so far 
as the way of thinking expressed in the myth was not 
already expressed in the ritual! itself, it had no properly 
religious sanction; the myth apart from the ritual affords 
only a doubtful and slippery kind of evidence. Before we 


20 ANALOGY OF RELIGIOUS LECT. L 


can handle myths with any confidence, we must have some 
definite hold of the ideas expressed in the ritual tradition, 
which embodied the only fixed and statutory elements of 
the religion. 

All this, I hope, will become clearer to us as we pro- 
ceed with our enquiry, and learn by practical example the 
use to be made of the different lines of evidence open to 
us. But it is of the first importance to realise clearly 
from the outset that ritual and practical usage were, 
strictly speaking, the sum-total of ancient religions. 
Religion in primitive times was not a system of belief 
with practical applications ; it was a body of fixed tradi- 
tional practices, to which every member of society con- 
formed as a matter of course. Men would not be men if 
they agreed to do certain things without having a reason 
for their action; but in ancient religion the reason was 
not first formulated as a doctrine and then expressed in 
practice, but conversely, practice preceded doctrinal theory. 
Men form general rules of conduct before they begin to 
express general principles in words; political institutions 
are older than political theories, and in like manner 
religious institutions are older than religious theories. 
This analogy is not arbitrarily chosen, for in fact the 
parallelism in ancient society between religious and 
political institutions is complete. In each sphere great 
importance was attached to form and precedent, but the 
explanation why the precedent was followed consisted 
merely of a legend as to its first establishment. That 
the precedent, once established, was authoritative did not 
appear to require any proof. The rules of society were 
based on precedent, and the continued existence of the 
society was sufficient reason why a precedent once set 
should continue to be followed. 

Strictly speaking, mdeed, I understate the case when 


LECT. I, AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 21 


I say that the oldest religious and political institutions 
present a close analogy. It would be more correct to 
say that they were parts of one whole of social custom. 
Religion was a part of the organised social life into which 
a man was born, and to which he conformed through life 
in the same unconscious way in which men fall into any 
habitual practice of the society in which they live. Men 
took the gods and their worship for granted, just as they 
took the other usages of the state for granted, and if they 
reasoned or speculated about them, they did so on the 
presupposition that the traditional usages were fixed things, 
behind which their reasonings must not go, and which no 
reasoning could be allowed to overturn. To us moderns 
religion is above all a matter of individual conviction and 
reasoned belief, but to the ancients it was a part of the 
citizen’s public life, reduced to fixed forms, which he was 
not bound to understand and was not at liberty to criticise 
or to neglect. Religious nonconformity was an offence 
against the state; for if sacred tradition was tampered 
with the bases of society were undermined, and the favour 
of the gods was forfeited. But so long as the prescribed 
forms were duly observed, a man was recognised as truly 
pious, and no one asked how his religion was rooted in his 
heart or affected his reason. Like political duty, of which 
indeed it was a part, religion was entirely comprehended 
in the observance of certain fixed rules of outward conduct. 

The conclusion from all this as to the method of our 
‘investigation is obvious. When we study the political 
structure of an early society, we do not begin by asking 
what is recorded of the first legislators, or what theory 
men advanced as to the reason of their institutions; we 
try to understand what the institutions were, and how 
they shaped men’s lives. In lke manner, in the study 
of Semitic eligion, we must not begin by asking what was 


22 THE NATURE LECT. & 
told about the gods, but what the working religious 
institutions were, and how they shaped the lives of the 
worshippers. Our enquiry, therefore, will be directed to 
the religious institutions which governed the lives of men 
of Semitic race. 

In following out this plan, however, we shall do well 
not to throw ourselves at once upon the multitudinous 
details of rite and ceremony, but to devote our attention 
to certain broad features of the sacred institutions which 
are sufficiently well marked to be realised at once. If we 
were called upon to examine the political institutions of 
antiquity, we should find it convenient to carry with us 
some general notion of the several types of government 
under which the multifarious institutions of ancient states 
arrange themselves. And in like manner it will be useful 
for us, when we examine the religious institutions of the 
Semites, to have first some general knowledge of the types 
of divine governance, the various ruling conceptions of the 
relations of the gods to man, which underlie the rites and 
ordinances of religion in different places and at different 
times. Such knowledge we can obtain in a provisional 
form, before entering on a mass of ritual details, mainly by 
considering the titles of honour by which men addressed 
their gods, and the language in which they expressed their 
dependence on them. From these we can see at once, in a 
broad, general way, what place the gods held in the social 
system of antiquity, and under what general categories 
their relations to their worshippers fell. The broad 
results thus reached must then be developed, and at the 
same time controlled and rendered more precise, by an 
examination in detail of the working institutions of 
religion. 

The question of the metaphysical nature of the gods, as 
distinct from their social office and function, must be left 


LECT. I. OF THE GODS 23 
in the background till this whole investigation is com- 
pleted. It is vain to ask what the gods are in themselves 
till we have studied them in what I may call their public 
life, that is, in the stated intercourse between them and 
their worshippers which was kept up by means of the 
prescribed forms of cultus. From the antique point of 
view, indeed, the question what the gods are in themselves 
is not a religious but a speculative one; what is requisite 
to religion is a practical acquaintance with the rules on 
which the deity acts and on which he expects his 
worshippers to frame their conduct—what in 2 Kings 
xvii. 26 is called the “manner” or rather the “ customary 
law” (mishpat) of the god of the land. This is true 
even of the religion of Israel When the prophets 
speak of the knowledge of God, they always mean a 
practical knowledge of the laws and principles of His 
government in Israel) and a summary expression for 
religion as a whole is “the knowledge and fear of 
Jehovah,” ? «ae. the knowledge of what Jehovah prescribes, 
combined with a reverent obedience. An extreme scep- 
ticism towards all religious speculation is recommended in 
the Book of Ecclesiastes as the proper attitude of piety, for 
no amount of discussion can carry a man beyond the plain 
rule to “fear God and keep His commandments.”*® This 
counsel the author puts into the mouth of Solomon, and so 
represents it, not unjustly, as summing up the old view of 
religion, which in more modern days had unfortunately 
begun to be undermined. 

The propriety of keeping back all metaphysical questions 
as to the nature of the gods till we have studied the 
practices of religion in detail, becomes very apparent if we 
consider for a moment what befel the later philosophers 
and theosophists of heathenism in their attempts to con- 


1 See especially Hosea, chap. iv, 2 Toa, xi, 2. 3 Eccles, xii, 13, 


24 THE RELATIONS BETWEEN LECT, I. 


struct a theory of the traditional religion. None of these 
thinkers succeeded in giving an account of the nature of 
the gods from which all the received practices of worship 
could be rationally deduced, and those who had any pre- 
tensions to orthodoxy had recourse to violent allegorical 
interpretations in order to bring the established ritual 
into accordance with their theories! The reason for this 
is obvious. The traditional usages of religion had grown 
up gradually in the course of many centuries, and reflected 
habits of thought characteristic of very diverse stages of 
man’s intellectual and moral development. No one con- 
ception of the nature of the gods could possibly afford the 
clue to all parts of that motley complex of rites and 
ceremonies which the later paganism had received by 
inheritance, from a series of ancestors in every state of 
culture from pure savagery upwards. The record of the 
religious thought of mankind, as it is embodied in religious 
institutions, resembles the geological record of the history 
of the earth’s crust; the new and the old are preserved 
side by side, or rather layer upon layer. The classification 
of ritual formations in their proper sequence is the first 
step towards their explanation, and that explanation itself 
must take the form, not of a speculative theory, but of a 
rational life-history. 

I have already explained that, in attempting such a life- 
history of religious institutions, we must begin by forming 
some preliminary ideas of the practical relation in which 
the gods of antiquity stood to their worshippers. I have 
now to add, that we shall also find it necessary to have 
before us from the outset some elementary notions of the 
relations which early races of mankind conceived to 
subsist between gods and men on the one hand, and the 
material universe on the other. All acts of ancient 


1 See, for example, Plutarch’s Greek and Roman Questions, 


LECT {. GODS MEN AND NATURE 25 
worship have a material embodiment, the form of which 
is determined by the consideration that gods and men 
alike stand in certain fixed relations to particular parts 
or aspects of physical nature. Certain places, certain 
things, even certain animal kinds are conceived as holy, ze. 
as standing in a near relation to the gods, and claiming 
special reverence from men, and this conception plays 
a very large part in the development of religious institu- 
tions. Here again we have a problem that cannot be 
solved by @ priort methods; it is only as we move onward 
from step to step in the analysis of the details of ritual 
observance that we can hope to gain full insight into the 
relations of the gods to physical nature. But there are 
certain broad features in the ancient conception of the 
universe, and of the relations of its parts to one another, 
which can be grasped at once, upon a merely preliminary 
survey, and we shall find it profitable to give attention to 
these at an early stage of our discussion. 

I propose, therefore, to devote my second lecture to 
the nature of the antique religious community and the 
relations of the gods to their worshippers. After this we 
will proceed to consider the relations of the gods to physical 
nature, not in a complete or exhaustive way, but in a 
manner entirely preliminary and provisional, and only so 
far as is necessary to enable us to understand the material 
basis of ancient ritual. After these preliminary enquiries 
have furnished us with certain necessary points of view, we 
shall be in a position to take up the institutions of worship 
in an orderly manner, and make an attempt to work out 
their life-history. We shall find that the history of 
religious institutions is the history of ancient religion 
itself, as a practical force in the development of the human 
race, and that the articulate efforts of the antique intellect 
to comprehend the meaning of religion, the nature of the 


26 PLAN OF LECT. 1 


gods, and the principles on which they deal with men, take 
their point of departure from the unspoken ideas embodied 
in the traditional forms of ritual praxis. Whether the con- 
scious efforts of ancient religious thinkers took the shape 
of mythological invention or of speculative construction, 
the raw material of thought upon which they operated was 
derived from the common traditional stock of religious 
conceptions that was handed on from generation to genera- 
tion, not in express words, but in the form of religious 
custom. 

In accordance with the rules of the Burnett Trust, 
three courses of lectures, to be delivered in successive 
winters, are allowed me for the development of this great 
subject. When the work was first entrusted to me, I 
formed the plan of dividing my task into three distinct 
parts. In the first course of lectures I hoped to cover the 
whole field of practical religious institutions. In the 
second I proposed to myself to discuss the nature and 
origin of the gods of Semitic heathenism, their relations 
to one another, the myths that surround them, and the 
whole subject of religious belief, so far as it is not directly 
involved in the observances of daily religious life. The 
third winter would thus have been left free for an ex- 
amination of the part which Semitic religion has played in 
universal history, and its influence on the general progress 
of humanity, whether in virtue of the early contact of 
Semitic faiths with other systems of antique religion, or— 
what is more important—in virtue of the influence, both 
positive and negative, that the common type of Semitic 
religion has exercised on the formulas and structure of the 
great monotheistic faiths that have gone forth from the 
Semitic lands. But the first division of the subject has 
grown under my hands, and I find that it will not be 
possible in a single winter to cover the whole field of 


LECT, I. THESE LECTURES 27 


religious institutions in a way at all adequate to the 
fundamental importance of this part of the enquiry. 

It will therefore be necessary to allow the first branch 
of the subject to run over into the second course, for 
which I reserve, among other matters of interest, the 
whole history of religious feasts and also that of the 
Semitic priesthoods. I hope, however, to give the present 
course a certain completeness in itself by carrying the 
investigation to the end of the great subject of sacrifice. 
The origin and meaning of sacrifice constitute the central 
problem of ancient religion, and when this problem has 
been disposed of we may naturally feel that we have 
reached a point of rest at which both speaker and hearers 
will be glad to make s pause. 


LECTURE II 


THE NATURE OF THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY, AND THE 
RELATION OF THE GODS TO THEIR WORSHIPPERS 


WE have seen that ancient faiths must be looked on ag 
matters of institution rather than of dogma or formulated 
belief, and that the system of an antique religion was part 
of the social order under which its adherents lived; so that 
the word “system” must here be taken in a practical sense, 
as when we speak of a political system, and not in the 
sense of an organised body of ideas or theological opinions. 
Broadly speaking, religion was made up of a series of acts 
and observances, the correct performance of which was 
necessary or desirable to secure the favour of the gods or 
to avert their anger; and in these observances every 
member of society had a share, marked out for him either 
in virtue of his being born within a certain family and 
community, or in virtue of the station, within the family 
and community, that he had come to hold in the course of 
his life. A man did not choose his religion or frame it for 
himself; it came to him as part of the general scheme of 
social obligations and ordinances laid upon him, as a matter 
of course, by his position in the family and in the nation. 
Individual men were more or less religious, as men now 
are more or less patriotic; that is, they discharged their 
religious duties with a greater or less degree of zeal accord- 
ing to their character and temperament; but there was no 


such thing as an absolutely irreligious man. A certain 
28 


LECT. Il. RELIGION AND NATURAL SOCIETY 29 


amount of religion was required of everybody ; for the due 
performance of religious acts was a social obligation in 
which every one had his appointed share. Of intolerance 
in the modern sense of the word ancient society knew 
nothing ; it never persecuted a man into particular beliefs 
for the good of his own soul. Religion did not exist for 
the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of 
society, and in all that was necessary to this end every 
man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and 
political community to which he belonged. 

Perhaps the simplest way of putting the state of the 
case is this. Every human being, without choice on his 
own part, but simply in virtue of his birth and upbringing, 
becomes a member of what we call a natural society. He 
belongs, that is, to a certain family and a certain nation, 
and this membership lays upon him definite obligations 
and duties which he is called upon to fulfil as a matter 
of course, and on pain of social penalties and disabilities, 
while at the same time it confers upon him certain social 
rights and advantages. In this respect the ancient and 
modern worlds are alike; but there is this important 
difference, that the tribal or national societies of the ancient 
world were not strictly natural in the modern sense of the 
word, for the gods had their part and place in them equally 
with men. The circle into which a man was born was not 
simply a group of kinsfolk and fellow-citizens, but embraced 
also certain divine beings, the gods of the family and of the 
state, which to the ancient mind were as much a part of 
the particular community with which they stood connected 
as the human members of the social circle. The relation 
between the gods of antiquity and their worshippers was 
expressed in the language of human relationship, and this 
language was not taken in a figurative sense but with strict 
literality. If a god was spoken of as father and his wor- 


30 RELIGION AND LECT. I. 


shippers as his offspring, the meaning was that the worship- 
pers were literally of his stock, that he and they made up 
one natural family with reciprocal family duties to one 
another. Or, again, if the god was addressed as king, and 
the worshippers called themselves his servants, they meant 
that the supreme guidance of the state was actually in his 
hands, and accordingly the organisation of the state in- 
cluded provision for consulting his will and obtaining his 
direction in all weighty matters, and also provision for 
approaching him as king with due homage and tribute. 

Thus a man was born into a fixed relation to certain 
gods as surely as he was born into relation to his fellow- 
men; and his religion, that is, the part of conduct which 
was determined by his relation to the gods, was simply 
one side of the general scheme of conduct prescribed for 
him by his position as a member of society. There was no 
separation between the spheres of religion and of ordinary 
life. Every social act had a reference to the gods as well 
as to men, for the social body was not made up of men 
only, but of gods and men. 

This account of the position of religion in the social 
system holds good, I believe, for all parts and races of the 
ancient world in the earlier stages of their history. The 
causes of so remarkable a uniformity lie hidden in the mists 
of prehistoric time, but must plainly have been of a general 
kind, operating on all parts of mankind without distinction 
of race and local environment; for in every region of the 
world, as soon a8 we tind a nation or tribe emerging from 
prehistoric darkness into the light of authentic history, we 
find also that its religion conforms to the general type 
which has just been indicated. As time rolls on and 
society advances, modifications take place. In religion as 
in other matters the transition from the antique to the 
modern type of life is not sudden and unprepared, but is 


LECT. 11. NATURAL SOCIETY 31 


gradually led up to by a continuous disintegration of the 
old structure of society, accompanied by the growth of new 
ideas and institutions. In Greece, for example, the inti- 
mate connection of religion with the organisation of the 
family and the state was modified and made less exclusive, 
at a relatively early date, by the Pan-Hellenic conceptions 
which find their theological expressions in Homer. If the 
Homeric poems were the Bible of the Greeks, as has so often 
been said, the true meaning of this phrase is that in these 
poems utterance was given to ideas about the gods which 
broke through the limitations of local and tribal worship, 
and held forth to all Greeks a certain common stock of 
religious ideas and motives, not hampered by the exclusive- 
ness which in the earlier stages of society allows of no 
fellowship in religion that is not also a fellowship in the 
interests of a single kin or a single political group. In 
Italy there never was anything corresponding to the Pan- 
Hellenic ideas that operated in Greece, and accordingly the 
strict union of religion and the state, the solidarity of gods 
and men as parts of a single society with common interests 
and common aims, was characteristically exhibited in the 
institutions of Rome down to quite a late date. But in 
Greece as well as in Rome the ordinary traditional work-a- 
day religion of the masses never greatly departed from the 
primitive type. The final disintegration of antique religion 
in the countries of Greco-Italian civilisation was the work 
first of the philosophers and then of Christianity. But 
Christianity itself, in Southern Europe, has not altogether 
obliterated the original features of the paganism which it 
displaced. The Spanish peasants who insult the Madonna 
of the neighbouring village, and come to blows over the 
merits of rival local saints, still do homage to the same 
antique conception of religion which in Egypt animated the 
feuds of Ombos and Tentyra, and made hatred for each x 


32 RELIGION AND LECT, Ik 


other’s gods the formula that summed up all the local 
jealousies of the two towns. 

The principle that the fundamental conception of ancient 
religion is the solidarity of the gods and their worshippers 
as part of one organic society, carries with it important 
consequences, which I propose to examine in some detail, 
with special reference to the group of religions that forms 
the proper subject of these lectures. But though my 
facts and illustrations will be drawn from the Semitic 
sphere, a great part of what I shall have to say in the 
present lecture might be applied, with very trifling modifi- 
cations, to the early religion of any other part of mankind. 
The differences between Semitic and Aryan religion, for 
example, are not so primitive or fundamental as is often 
imagined. Not only in matters of worship, but in social 
organisation generally—and we have seen that ancient 
religion is but a part of the general social order which 
embraces gods and men alike—the two races, Aryans and 
Semites, began on lines which are so much alike as to be 
almost indistinguishable, and the divergence between their 
paths, which becomes more and more apparent in the 
course of ages, was not altogether an affair of race and 
innate tendency, but depended in a great measure on the 
operation of special local and historical causes. 

In both races the first steps of social and religious 
development took place in small communities, which at 
the dawn of history had a political system based on the 
principle of kinship, and were mainly held together by the 
tie of blood, the only social bond which then had absolute 
and undisputed strength, being enforced by the law of 
blood revenge. As a rule, however, men of several clans 
lived side by side, forming communities which did not 
possess the absolute homogeneity of blood brotherhood, 
and yet were united by common interests and the habit 


LECT, II. NATURAL SOCIETY 33 


ab 


of friendly association. The origin of such associations, 
which are found all over the world at a very early stage 
of society, need not occupy us now. It is enough to note 
the fact that they existed, and were not maintained by 
the feeling of kindred, but by habit and community of 
interests. These local communities of men of different 
clans, who lived together on a footing of amity, and had 
often to unite in common action, especially in war, but 
also in affairs of polity and justice, were the origin of the 
antique state. There is probably no case in ancient 
history where a state was simply the development of a 
single homogeneous clan or gens, although the several clans 
which united to form a state often came in course of time 
to suppose themselves to be only branches of one great 
ancestral brotherhood, and were thus knit together in a 
closer unity of sentiment and action. But in the begin- 
ning, the union of several clans for common political 
action was not sustained either by an effective sentiment 
of kinship (the law of blood revenge uniting only members 
of the same clan) or by any close political organisation, 
but was produced by the pressure of practical necessity, 
and always tended towards dissolution when this practical 
pressure was withdrawn. The only organisation for 
common action was that the leading men of the clans 
consulted together in time of need, and their influence led 
the masses with them. Out of these conferences arose the 
senates of elders found in the ancient states of Semitic 
and Aryan antiquity alike. The kingship, again, as we 
find it in most antique states, appears to have ordinarily 
arisen in the way which is so well illustrated by the 
history of Israel. In time of war an individual leader is 
indispensable ; in a time of prolonged danger the temporary 
authority of an approved captain easily passes into the 
lifelong leadership at home as well as in the field, which 
3 


34 THE OLDEST LECT, I. 


was exercised by such a judge as Gideon; and at length 
the advantages of having a permanent head, both as a 
leader of the army and as a restraint on the perennial 
feuds and jealousies of clans that constantly threaten the 
solidity of the state, are recognised in the institution of 
the kingship, which again tends to become hereditary, as 
in the case of the house of David, simply because the 
king’s house naturally becomes greater and richer than 
other houses, and so better able to sustain the burden of 
power. | 

Up to this point the progress of society was much 
alike in the East and in the West, and the progress of 
religion, as we shall see in the sequel, followed that of 
society in general. But while in Greece and Rome the 
early period of the kings lies in the far background of 
tradition, and only forms the starting-point oz the long 
development with which the historian of these countries 
is mainly occupied, the independent evolution of Semitic 
society was arrested at an early stage. In the case of the 
nomadic Arabs, shut up in their wildernesses of rock and 
sand, Nature herself barred the way of progress. The life 
of the desert does not furnish the material conditions for 
permanent advance beyond the tribal system, and we find 
that the religious development of the Arabs was propor- 
tionally retarded, so that at the advent of Islam the 
ancient heathenism, like the ancient tribal structure of 
society, had become effete without having ever ceased to 
be barbarous. 

The northern Semites, on the other hand, whose pro- 
gress up to the eighth century before Christ certainly did 
not lag behind that of the Greeks, were deprived of political 
independence, and so cut short in their natural develop- 
ment, by the advance from the Tigris to the Mediterranean 
of the great Assyrian monarchs, who, drawing from the 


a a 


LECT. II. SEMITIC COMMUNITIES 35 
rich and broad alluvium of the Two Rivers resources which 
none of their neighbours could rival, went on from conquest 
to conquest till all the small states of Syria and Palestine 
had gone down before them. The Assyrians were con- 
querors of the most brutal and destructive kind, and 
wherever they came the whole structure of ancient society 
was dissolved. From this time onwards the difference 
between the Syrian or Palestinian and the Greek was not 
one of race alone; it was the difference between a free 
citizen and a slave of an Oriental despotism. Religion 
as well as civil society was profoundly affected by the 
catastrophe of the old free communities of the northern 
Semitic lands; the society of one and the same religion 
was no longer identical with the state, and the old 
solidarity of civil and religious life continued to exist 
only in a modified form. It is not therefore surprising 
that from the eighth century onwards the history of 
Semitic religion runs a very different course from that 
which we observe on the other side of the Mediterranean. 
The ancient Semitic communities were small, and were 
separated from each other by incessant feuds. Hence, 
on the principle of solidarity between gods and their 
worshippers, the particularism characteristic of political 
society could not but reappear in the sphere of religion. 
In the same measure as the god of a clan or town had 
indisputable claim to the reverence and service of the 
community to which he belonged, he was necessarily 
an enemy to their enemies and a stranger to those to 
whom they were strangers. Of this there are sufficient 
evidences in the way in which the Old Testament speaks 
about the relation of the nations to their gods. When 
David in the bitterness of his heart complains of those 
who “have driven him out from connection with the 
heritage of Jehovah,” he represents them as saying to 


36 THE NATIONS LECT. IL. 


him, “Go, serve other gods.”1 In driving him to seek 
refuge in another land and another nationality, they 
compel him to change his religion, for a man’s religion 
is part of his political connection. “Thy sister,’ says. 
Naomi to Ruth, “is gone back unto her people and untc 
her gods”; and Ruth replies, “Thy people shall be my 
people, and thy God my God” :? the change of nationality 
involves a change of cult. Jeremiah, in the full conscious- 
ness of the falsehood of all religions except that of Israel, 
remarks that no nation changes its gods although they be 
no gods:? a nation’s worship remains as constant as its 
political identity. The Book of Deuteronomy, speaking im 
like manner from the standpoint of monotheism, reconciles 
the sovereignty of Jehovah with the actual facts of 
heathenism, by saying that He has “allotted” the various 
objects of false worship “unto all nations under the whole 
heaven.”* The “allotment” of false gods among the 
nations, as property is allotted, expresses with precision 
the idea that each god had his own determinate circle of 
worshippers, to whom he stood in a peculiar and exclusive 
relation. 

The exclusiveness of which I have just spoken naturally 
finds its most pronounced expression in the share taken 
by the gods in the feuds and wars of their worshippers. 
The enemies of the god and the enemies of his people are 
identical; even in the Old Testament “the enemies of 
Jehovah” are originally nothing else than the enemies 
of Israel. In battle each god fights for his own people, 
and to his aid success is ascribed ; Chemosh gives victory 
to Moab, and Asshur to Assyria;® and often the divine 

1] Sam. xxvi. 19. 2 Ruth i. 14 sgq. 
3 Jer. ii. 11. 4 Deut. iv. 19. 
61 Sam. xxx. 26, ‘‘ the spoil of the enemies of Jehovah” ; Judg. v. 31. 


6 See the inscription of King Mesha on the so-called Moabite Stone, and 
the Assyrian inscriptions, passim. 


LECT, IL AND THEIR GODS 37 


image or symbol accompanies the host to battle. When 
the ark was brought into the camp of Israel, the Philistines 
said, “Gods are come into the camp; who can deliver us 
from the hand of these mighty gods?”! They judged from 
their own practice, for when David defeated them at Baal- 
perazim, part of the booty consisted in their idols which 
had been carried into the field? When the Carthaginians, 
in their treaty with Philip of Macedon,’ speak of “ the gods 
that take part in the campaign,” they doubtless refer to 
the inmates of the sacred tent which was pitched in time * 
of war beside the tent of the general, and before which 
prisoners were sacrificed after a victory. Similarly an 
Arabic poet says, “ Yaghtth went forth with us against 
Morad”;° that is, the image of the god Yaghtith was 
carried into the fray. You observe how literal and 
realistic was the conception of the part taken by the 
deity in the wars of his worshippers. 

When the gods of the several Semitic communities 
took part in this way in the ancestral feuds of their 
worshippers, it was impossible for an individual to change 
his religion without changing his nationality, and a whole 
community could hardly change its religion at all without 
being absorbed into another stock or nation. Religious 
like political ties were transmitted from father to son; 
for a man could not choose a new god at will; the gods of 
his fathers were the only deities on whom he could count 
as friendly and ready to accept his homage, unless he 
forswore his own kindred and was received into a new 


1] Sam. iv. 7 sqq. 22 Sam. v. 21. 

3 Polybius, vii. 9. 4 Diodorus, xx. 65, 

5 Yaciit, iv. 1023. A survival of the same idea is seen in the portable 
tabernacle of the Carmathians (Ibn al-Jauzi, ap. De Goeje, Carmathes [1886], 
pp. 180 220 sg.) from which victory was believed to descend. De Goeje 
compares the portable sanctuary of Mokhtar (Tabari, ii. 702 sgg.) and the 
‘otfa still used by Bedouin tribes (Burckhardt, Bed. and Wah. i. 145 ; Lady 
Anne Blunt, Bedouin Tribes, ii. 146 ; Doughty, i. 61, ii. 304). 


38 THE NATIONS LECT. 1 
circle of civil as well as religious life. In the old times 
hardly any but outlaws changed their religion; ceremonies 
of initiation, by which a man was received into a new 
religious circle, became important, as we shall see by and 
by, only after the breaking up of the old political life of 
the small Semitic commonwealths. 

On the other hand, all social fusion between two 
communities tended to bring about a religious fusion also. 
This might take place in two ways. ‘Sometimes two gods 
were themselves fused into one, as when the mass of the 
Israelites in their local worship of Jehovah identified Him 
with the Baalim of the Canaanite high places, and carried 
over into His worship the ritual of the Canaanite shrines, 
not deeming that in so doing they were less truly Jehovah- 
worshippers than before. This process was greatly facili- 
tated by the extreme similarity in the attributes ascribed 
to different local or tribal gods, and the frequent identity 
of the divine titles.1_ One Baal hardly differed from another, 
except in being connected with a different kindred or a 
different place, and when the kindreds were fused by 
intermarriage, or lived together in one village on a footing 
of social amity, there was nothing to keep their gods 
permanently distinct. In other cases, where the several 
deities brought together by the union of their worshippers 
into one state were too distinct to lose their individuality, 
they continued to be worshipped side by side as allied 


1 It will appear in the sequel that the worship of the greater Semitic 
deities was closely associated with the reverence which all primitive pastoral 
tribes pay to their flocks and herds. To a tribe whose herds consisted of 
kine and oxen, the cow and the ox were sacred beings, which in the oldest 
times were never killed or eaten except sacrificially. The tribal deities 
themselves were conceived as closely akin to the sacred species of domestic 
animals, and their images were often made in the likeness of steers or heifers 
in cow-keeping tribes, or of rams and ewes in shepherd tribes. It is easy to 
see how this facilitated the fusion of tribal worships, and how deities 
originally distinct might come to be identified on account of the similarity 
of their images and of the sacrifices offered to them. See p. 297 sqq. 


LECT. 1. AND THEIR GODS 39 


divine powers, and it is to this kind of process that we 
must apparently ascribe the development of a Semitic 
pantheon or polytheistic system. A pantheon, or organised 
commonwealth of gods, such as we find in the state 
religion of Egypt or in the Homeric poems, is not the 
primitive type of heathenism, and little trace of such a 
thing appears in the oldest documents of the religion 
of the smaller Semitic communities. The old Semites 
believed in the existence of many gods, for they accepted 
as real the gods of their enemies as well as their own, but 
they did not worship the strange gods from whom they 
had no favour to expect, and on whom their gifts and 
offerings would have been thrown away. When every 
small community was on terms of frequent hostility with 
all its neighbours, the formation of a polytheistic system 
was impossible. Hach group had its own god, or perhaps 
a god and a goddess, to whom the other gods bore no 
relation whatever. It was only as the small groups 
coalesced into larger unities, that a society and kinship 
of many gods began to be formed, on the model of the 
alliance or fusion of their respective worshippers; and 
indeed the chief part in the development of a systematic 
hierarchy or commonwealth of Semitic deities is due to 
the Babylonians and Assyrians, among whom the labours 
of statesmen to build up a consolidated empire out of a 
multitude of local communities, originally independent, were 
seconded by the efforts of the priests to give a correspond- 
ing unity of scheme to the multiplicity of local worships. 
Thus far we have looked only at the general fact, that 
in a Semitic community men and their gods formed a 
social and political as well as a religious whole. But to 


1 In the eighth century B.c. some of the Western Semitic states had a con- 
siderable pantheon, as appears most clearly from the notices of the ‘‘ gods of 
Ya’di” on the inscriptions found (in 1890) at Zenjirli in North-West 
Syria, at the foot of Mount Amanus. See Cooke, Nos. 61-63. 


40 THE FATHERHOOD LECT. 


make our conceptions more concrete we must consider 
what place in this whole was occupied by the divine 
element of the social partnership. And here we find that 
the two leading conceptions of the relation of the god to 
his people are those of fatherhood and of kingship. We 
have learned to look on Semitic society as built up on two 
bases—on kinship, which is the foundation of the system 
of clans or gentes, and on the union of kins, living inter- 
mingled or side by side, and bound together by common 
interests, which is the foundation of the state. We now see 
that the clan and the state are both represented in religion : 


as father the god belongs to the family or clan, as king © 


he belongs to the state; and in each sphere of the social 
order he holds the position of highest dignity. Both these 
conceptions deserve to be looked at and illustrated in some 
detail. 

The relation of a father to his children has a moral as 
well as a physical aspect, and each of these must be taken 
into account in considering what the fatherhood of the 
tribal deity meant in ancient religion. In the physical 
aspect the father is the being to whom the child owes his 
life, and through whom he traces kinship with the other 
members of his family or clan. The antique conception 
of kinship is participation in one blood, which passes from 
parent to child and circulates in the veins of every member 
of the family. The unity of the family or clan is viewed 
as a physical unity, for the blood is the life,—an idea 
familiar to us from the Old Testament,1—and it is the same 

1Gen. ix. 4; Deut. xii. 28. Among the Arabs also nafs is used of the 
life-blood. When a man dies a natural death his life departs through the 
nostrils (mata hatfa anfiht), but when he is slain in battle ‘‘ his life flows on 
the spear point” (Hamasa, p. 52). Similarly /@ najfsa lahu sailatun means 
la dama lahu yajri (Misbah, s.v.). To the use of nafs in the sense of blood, 
the Arabian philologists refer such expressions as nifas, childbirth ; na/fsa, 


puerpera. The use of nafisat or nufisat in the sense of hddat (Bokhari, 
i. 72, 1. 10) appears to justify their explanation. 


3 4 - 2 
Ma. - 
Ne ee eee 


LECT. II, OF THE GODS 41 
blood and therefore the same life that is shared by every 
descendant of the common ancestor. The idea that the 
race has a life of its own, of which individual lives are only 
parts, is expressed even more clearly by picturing the race 
as a tree, of which the ancestor is the root or stem and 
the descendants the branches. This figure is used by all 
the Semites, and is very common both in the Old Testament 
and in the Arabian poets. 

The moral aspect of fatherhood, again, lies in the social 
relations and obligations which flow from the physical 
relationship—in the sanctity of the tie of blood which 
binds together the whole family, and in the particular 
modification of this tie in the case of parent and child, the 
parent protecting and nourishing the child, while the child 
owes obedience and service to his parent. 

In Christianity, and already in the spiritual religion of 
the Hebrews, the idea of divine fatherhood is entirely 
dissociated from the physical basis of natural fatherhood. 
Man was created in the image of God, but he was not 
begotten ; God-sonship is not a thing of nature but a thing 
of grace. In the Old Testament, Israel is Jehovah’s son, 
and Jehovah is his father who created him;! but this 
creation is not a physical act, it refers to the series of 
gracious deeds by which Israel was shaped into a nation. 
And so, though it may be said of the Israelites as a whole, 
“Ye are the children of Jehovah your God,’? this sonship 
is national, not personal, and the individual Israelite has 
not the right to call himself Jehovah’s son. 

But in heathen religions the fatherhood of the gods is 
physical fatherhood. Among the Greeks, for example, the 
idea that the gods fashioned men out of clay, as potters 
fashion images, is relatively modern. The older conception 
is that the races of men have gods for their ancestors, or 


1 Hos. xi. 1; Deut. xxxii. 6. 2 Deut. xiv. 1, 


42 THE FATHERHOOD LECT. II, 


are the children of the earth, the common mother of gods 
and men, so that men are really of the stock or kin of the 
gods. That the same conception was familiar to the older 
Semites appears from the Bible. Jeremiah describes 
idolaters as saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and toa 
stone, Thou hast brought me forth.? In the ancient poem, 
Num. xxi. 29, the Moabites are called the sons and 
daughters of Chemosh, and at a much more recent date the 
prophet Malachi calls a heathen woman “the daughter of 
a strange god.”* These phrases are doubtless accommoda- 
tions to the language which the heathen neighbours of 
Israel used about themselves; they belong to an age when 
society in Syria and Palestine was still mainly organised 
on the tribal system, so that each clan, or even each complex 
of clans forming a small independent people, traced back its 
origin to a great first father; and they indicate that, just 
as in Greece, this father or apynyérns of the race wat 
commonly identified with the god of the race. With this 
it accords that in the judgment of most modern enquirers 
several names of deities appear in the old genealogies of 
nations in the Book of Genesis. Edom, for example, the 
progenitor of the Edomites, was identified by the Hebrews 
with Esau the brother of Jacob, but to the heathen he was 
a god, as appears from the theophorous proper name 
Obededom, “ worshipper of Edom.”* The remains of such 


1 See details and references in Preller-Robert, Griechische Mythol. (1887) 
i. 78 sqq. 

2 Jer. li. 27. 3 Mal. ii. 11. 

4 Bathgen, Bettrdge zur Semitischen Religionsg. p. 10, objects that not 
all names compounded with Ay are theophorous, And it is true that on 
the Nabatzan inscriptions we find names of this form in which the second 
element is the name of a king; but this is in a state of society where the 
king was revered as at least quasi-divine, and where the apotheosis of dead 
kings was not unknown. Cf. Wellh. p. 2 sg.; Euting, Mabat. Inschr. p. 
32 sq. ; and especially Clermont-Ganneau, Rec. d’ Archéol. Or. i. 89 sqg. It 
must, however, be admitted that in questions of the history of religion, 
arguments derived from names are apt to be somewhat inconclusive ; it ia 


LECT. 11. OF THE GODS 43 
mythology are naturally few in records which have come 
to us through the monotheistic Hebrews. On the other 
hand, the extant fragments of Phcenician and Babylonian 
cosmogonies date from a time when tribal religion and the 
connection of individual gods with particular kindreds was 
forgotten or had fallen into the background. But in a 
generalised form the notion that men are the offspring of 
the gods still held its ground. In the Phcenician cosmogony 
of Philo Byblius it does so in a confused shape, due to the 
author’s euhemerism, that is, to his theory that deities are 
nothing more than deified men who had been great bene- 
factors to their species. But euhemerism itself can arise, 
as an explanation of popular religion, only where the old 
gods are regarded as akin to men, and where, therefore, the 
deification of human benefactors does not involve any such 
patent absurdity as on our way of thinking. Again, in the 
Chaldean legend preserved by Berosus the belief that 
men are of the blood of the gods is expressed in a form too 
crude not to be very ancient; for animals as well as men 
are said to have been formed out of clay mingled with the 
blood of a decapitated deity. Here we have a blood-kinship 


possible, though surely very improbable, that the national name DIN 
(always written plene) means ‘‘men,” Arabic anadm, and is different from 
the god-name DN ; see Noldeke in ZDM@. xlii. 470. 

As examples of god-names in the genealogies of Genesis, I have elsewhere 
adduced Uz (Gen. xxii. 21, xxxvi. 28; LXX, Of, QM, Qs; and in Jobi. 1, 
Avouris)=' Aud (Kin. 59-61) and Yeush (Gen. xxxvi. 14)=Yaghith. The 
second of these identifications is accepted by Néldeke, but rejected by 
Lagarde, Mitth. ii. 77, Bildung der Nomina, p. 124. The other has been 
criticised by Noldeke, ZDMG. xl. 184, but his remarks do not seem to me 
to be conclusive. That the Arabian god is a mere personification of Time is 
a hard saying, and the view that ‘audo or ‘auda in the line of al-A‘sha is 
derived from the name of the god, which Noldeke finds to be ‘‘ doch etwas 
bizarr,” has at least the authority of Ibn al-Kalbi as cited by Jauhari, and 
more clearly in the Lisan. A god })‘p bearing the same name as the ante- 
diluvian Cainan (Gen. v. 9) appears in Himyaritic inscriptions; ZDMG, 
xxxi. 86; CJS. iv. p. 20. 

1Miiller, Fr. Hist. Gr. ii. 497 sq. 


44 KINSHIP OF LECT, IL 


of gods men and beasts, a belief which has points of contact 
with the lowest forms of savage religion. 

It is obvious that the idea of a physical affinity between 
the gods and men in general is more modern than that of 
affinity between particular gods and their worshippers; and 
the survival of the idea in a generalised form, after men’s 
religion had ceased to be strictly dependent on tribal con- 
nection, is in itself a proof that belief in their descent from 
the blood of the gods was not confined to this or that clan, 
but was a widespread feature in the old tribal religions of 
the Semites, too deeply interwoven with the whole system 
of faith and practice to be altogether thrown aside when 
the community of the same worship ceased to be purely 
one of kinship. 

That this was really the case will be seen more clearly 
when we come to speak of the common features of Semitic 
ritual, and especially of the ritual use of blood, which is 
the primitive symbol of kinship. Meantime let us observe 
that there is yet another form in which the idea of divine 
descent survived the breaking up of the tribal system 
among the northern Semites. When this took place, the 
worshippers of one god, being now men of different 
kindreds, united by political bonds instead of bonds of 
blood, could not be all thought of as children of the god. 
He was no longer their father but their king. But as 
the deities of a mixed community were in their origin the 
old deities of the more influential families, the members of 
these families might still trace their origin to the family 
god, and find in this pedigree matter of aristocratic pride. 
Thus royal and noble houses among the Greeks long con- 
tinued to trace their stem back to a divine forefather, and 
the same thing appears among the Semites. We are told 
by Virgil and Silius Italicus,! that the royal house of Tyre 


1 An. i. 729; Punica, i. 87. 


LECT, II, GODS AND MEN 45 


and the noblest families of Carthage claimed descent from 
the Tyrian Baal; among the Aramean sovereigns of 
Damascus, mentioned in the Bible, we find more than one 
Ben-hadad, “son of the god Hadad,” and at Zenjirli the 
king Bar-RKB seems from his name to claim descent from 
the god RKB-EL‘ Among the later Aramzans names 
like Barlaha, “son of God,” Barba‘shmin, “son of the Lord 
of Heaven,’ Barate, “son of Ate,” are not uncommon. At 
Palmyra we have Barnebo, “son of Nebo,” Barshamsh, 
“son of the Sun-god”; and in Ezra ii. the eponym of a 
family of temple slaves is Barkos, “son of the god Caus.” 
Whether any definite idea was attached to such names in 
later times is doubtful; perhaps their diffusion was due to 
the constant tendency of the masses to copy aristocratic 
names, which is as prevalent in the East as among 
ourselves.” 


1 For the god-sonship of Assyrian monarchs, see Tiele, Babylonisch-Assyr. 
Gesch. p. 492. 

* Among the Hebrews and Pheenicians personal names of this type do 
not appear; we have, however, the woman’s name byana, ‘daughter of 
Baal,” CUS. pt. i. Nos. 469, 727, etc. On the other hand, the worshipper is 
called brother (that is, kinsman) or sister of the god in such names as 
the Phenician 7$on, noopn, orn; ydonn, nadpnn, mpbonn, ndnn, 
nonn, ‘‘ sister of Tanith,” and the Hebrew Syn, mns. A singular and 
puzzling class of theophorous names are those which have the form of an 
Arabic konya; as Abibaal, ‘‘ father of Baal.’’ It has been common to evade 
the difficulty by rendering ‘“‘ my father is Baal”; but this view breaks down 
before such a woman’s name as JOWNION (CIS. No. 881), ‘“‘ mother of the 
god Eshmun.” See Noldeke in ZDMG. xlii. (1888) p. 480, who seems dis- 
posed to believe that ‘‘ father” has here some metaphorical sense, comparing 
Gen. xlv. 8. For my own part I hazard the conjecture that the konya was 
in practice used as equivalent to the patronymic ; the custom of calling the 
eldest son after the grandfather was so widespread that M, son of N, was 
pretty sure to be known also as M, father of N, and the latter, as the more 
polite form of address, might very well come to supersede the patronymic 
altogether. I think there are some traces of this in Arabic ; the poet ‘Amr b. 
Kolthum addresses the king ‘Amr b. Hind as Abu Hind (Moall. 1. 23). In 
Hebrew the prefixes ‘8, "N&, 3% are used in forming names of women as 
well as men, and so in Phenician Abibaal may be a woman’s name (CJS. 
No. 378), as ya, 7oON are in Himyaritic (CIS. pt. iv. Nos. 6, 85); 
but for this linguistic peculiarity Noldeke has adduced satisfactory analogies. 


46 KINSHIP OF LECT. Il. 


The belief that all the members of a clan are sons and 
daughters of its god, might naturally be expected to survive 
longest in Arabia, where the tribe was never lost in the 
state, and kinship continued down to the time of Mohammed 
to be the one sacred bond of social unity. In point of 
fact many Arabian tribes bear the names of gods, or of 
celestial bodies worshipped as gods, and their members are 
styled “sons of Hobal,” “sons of the Full Moon,” and the 
like! There is no adequate reason for refusing to explain 
these names, or at least the older ones among them, on 
the analogy of the similar clan-names found among the 
northern Semites; for Arabian ritual, as well as that of 
Palestine and Syria, involves in its origin a belief in the 
kinship of the god and his worshippers. In the later ages 
of Arabian heathenism, however, of which alone we have 
any full accounts, religion had come to be very much dis- 
sociated from tribal feeling, mainly, it would seem, in 
consequence of the extensive migrations which took place 
in the first centuries of our era,and carried tribes far away 
from the fixed sanctuaries of the gods of their fathers.” 
Men forgot their old worship, and as the names of gods 
were also used as individual proper names, the divine 
ancestor, even before Islam, had generally sunk to the rank 
of a mere man. But though the later Arabs worshipped 
gods that were not the gods of their fathers, and tribes of 
alien blood were often found gathered together on festival 


1See Kinship, p. 241 sqq., and Wellhausen, Heidenthum, p. 7 sqq., who 
explains all such names as due to omission of the prefix “Abd or the like. 
In some cases this probably is so, but it must not be assumed that because 
the same tribe is called (for example) ‘Auf or ‘Abd ‘Auf indifferently, Banu 
‘Auf is a contraction of Banu ‘Abd ‘Auf. It is quite logical that the sons 
of ‘Auf form the collective body of his worshippers; cf. Mal. iii. 17 ; and 
for the collective use of ‘abd cf. Hamasa, p. 312, first verse. Personal names 
indicating god-sonship are lacking in Arabia ; see on supposed sein 
examples, D. H. Miller, ZDMG. xxxvii. 12 sq., 15. 

* See Wellhausen, wt supra, p. 215 sq., and compare 1 Sam. xxvi. 19. 


LECT. 1, | GODS AND MEN 47 


occasions at the great pilgrim shrines, there are many 
evidences that all Arabic deities were originally the gods 
of particular kins, and that the bond of religion was 
originally coextensive with the bond of blood. 

A main proof of this lies in the fact that the duties of 
blood were the only duties of absolute and indefeasible 
sanctity. The Arab warrior in the ages immediately pre- 
ceding Islam was very deficient in religion in the ordinary 
sense of the word; he was little occupied with the things 
of the gods and negligent in matters of ritual worship. 
But he had a truly religious reverence for his clan, and a 
kinsman’s blood was to him a thing holy and inviolable. 
This apparent paradox becomes at once intelligible when 
we view it in the light of the antique conception, that the 
god and his worshippers make up a society in which the 
same character of sanctity is impressed on the relations of 
the worshippers to one another as on their relations to 
their god. The original religious society was the kindred 
group, and all the duties of kinship were part of religion. 
And so even when the clan-god had fallen into the back- 
ground and was little remembered, the type of a clan- 
religion was still maintained in the enduring sanctity of 
the kindred bond.? 

Again, the primitive connection of religion with kindred 
is attested by the existence of priesthoods confined to men 
of one clan or family, which in many cases was of a 


1 When the oracle at Tabala forbade the poet Imraulcais to make war 
on the slayers of his father, he broke the lot and dashed the pieces in the 
face of the god, exclaiming with a gross and insulting expletive, ‘‘If it 
had been thy father that was killed, thou wouldst not have refused me 
vengeance.” The respect for the sanctity of blood overrides respect for a 
god who, by taking no interest in the poet’s blood-feud, has shown that he 
has no feeling of kindred for the murdered man and his son. Imraulecais’s 
act does not show that he was impious, but only that kinship was the 
principle of his religion. That with such principles he consulted the oracle 
of a strange god at all, is perhaps to be explained by the fact that his army 
was a miscellaneous band of hirelings and broken men of various tribes, 


48 KINSHIP OF LECT. Il 
different blood from the class of the worshippers. Cases 
of this sort are common, not only among the Arabs, but 
among the other Semites also, and generally throughout 
the ancient world. In such cases the priestly clan may 
often represent the original kindred group which was once 
in exclusive possession of the sacra of the god, and con- 
tinued to administer them after worshippers from without 
were admitted to the religion. 

And further, it will appear when we come to the 
subject of sacrifice, that when tribes of different blood 
worshipped at the same sanctuary and adored the same 
god, they yet held themselves apart from one another and 
did not engage in any common act that united them in 
religious fellowship. The circle of worship was still the 
kin, though the deity worshipped was not of the kin, and 
the only way in which two kindreds could form a religious 
fusion was by a covenant ceremony, in which it was 
symbolically set forth that they were no longer twain, but 
of one blood. It is clear, therefore, that among the Arabs 
the circle of religious solidarity was originally the group 
of kinsmen, and it needs no proof that, this being so, the 
god himself must have been conceived as united to his 
worshippers by the bond of blood, as their great kinsman, 
or more specifically as their great ancestor. 

It is often said that the original Semitic conception 
of the godhead was abstract and transcendental; that 
while Aryan religion with its poetic mythology drew 
the gods down into the sphere of nature and of human 
life, Semitic religion always showed an opposite tendency, 
that it sought to remove the gods as far as possible from 
man, and even contained within itself from the first the 
seeds of an abstract deism. According to this view, the 
anthropomorphisms of Semitic religion, that is, all expres- 

1 Wellhausen, p. 130 39. 


LECT. Il. GODS AND MEN 49 


sions which in their literal sense imply that the gods have 
a physical nature cognate to that of man, are explained 
away as mere allegory, and it is urged, in proof of the 
fundamental distinction between the Aryan and Semitic 
conceptions of the divine nature, that myths like those of 
the Aryans, in which gods act like men, mingle with men 
and in fact live a common life with mankind, have little 
or no place in Semitic religion. But all this is mere 
unfounded assumption. It is true that the remains of 
ancient Semitic mythology are not very numerous; but 
mythology cannot be preserved without literature, and an 
early literature of Semitic heathenism does not exist. 
The one exception is the cuneiform literature of Babylonia, 
and in it we find fragments of a copious mythology. It is 
true, also, that there is not much mythology in the poetry 
of heathen Arabia; but Arabian poetry has little to do 
with religion at all: it dates from the extreme decadence 
of the old heathenism, and is preserved to us only in the 
collections formed by Mohammedan scholars, who were 
careful to avoid or obliterate as far as possible the traces 
of their fathers’ idolatry. That the Semites never had a 
mythological epic poetry comparable to that of the Greeks 
is admitted ; but the character of the Semitic genius, which 
is deficient in plastic power and in the faculty of sustained 
and orderly effort, is enough to account for the fact. We 
cannot draw inferences for religion from the absence of 
an elaborate mythology ; the question is whether there are 
not traces, in however crude a form, of the mythological 
point of view. And this question must be answered in 
the affirmative. I must not turn aside now to speak at 
large of Semitic myths, but it is to the point to observe 
that there do exist remains of myths, and not only of 
myths but of sacred usages, involving a conception of the 
divine beings and their relation with man which entirely 
4 


50 KINSHIP OF LECT. 1, 
justifies ‘us in taking the kinship of men with gods in its 
literal and physical sense, exactly as in Greece. In Greece 
the loves of the gods with the daughters of men were 
referred to remote antiquity, but in Babylon the god Bel 
was still, in the time of Herodotus, provided with a human 
wife, who spent the night in his temple and with whom 
he was believed to share his couch In one of the few 
fragments of old mythology which have been transplanted 
unaltered into the Hebrew Scriptures, we read of the sons 
of gods who took wives of the daughters of men, and be- 
came the fathers of the renowned heroes of ancient days. 
Such a hero is the Gilgamesh of Babylonian myth, to whom 
the great goddess Ishtar did not disdain to offer her hand. 
Arabian tradition presents similar legends. The clan of 
‘Amr b, Yarbi‘ was descended from a s¢‘Jdt, or she-demon, 
who became the wife of their human father, but suddenly 
disappeared from him on seeing a flash of lightning. In 
this connection the distinction between gods and demi-gods 
is immaterial; the demi-gods are of divine kind, though 
they have not attained to the full position of deities with 
a ‘recognised circle of worshippers.® 

There is then a great variety of evidence to show that 
the type of religion which is founded on kinship, and in 
which the deity and his worshippers make up a society 
united by the. bond of blood, was widely prevalent, and 


1 Herod. i. 181 sg. This is not more realistic than the custom of pro- 
viding the Hercules (Baal) of Sanbulos with a horse, on which he rode out 
to hunt by night (Tac. Ann. xii. 13; cf. Gaz. Archéol. 1879, p. 178 sqq.). 

2 Ibn Doreid, Kitab al-ishticac, p. 1389. It is implied that the demoniac 
wife was of lightning kind. Elsewhere also the si‘7d¢ seems to be a fiery 
scorching being... In Ibn Hishim, p. 27, 1. 14, the Abyssinian hosts resemble 
Sa'‘ali because they ravage the country with fire, and the green trees are 
scorched up before them. See also Rasmussen, Addit. p. 71, 1. 19 of the 
Ar. text. : . 

3 Modern legends of marriage or courtship between men and jinn, 
Doughty, ii. 191 sg.; ZDPV. x. 84. Whether such marriages are lawful is 
solemnly discussed by Mohammedan jurists. | 


LECT. Il, GODS AND MEN 51 
that at an early date, among all the Semitic peoples. But 
the force of the evidence goes further, and leaves no 
reasonable doubt that among the Semites this was the 
original type of religion, out of which all other types 
grew. ‘That it was so is particularly clear as regards 
Arabia, where we have found the conception of the circle 
of worship and the circle of kindred as identical to be 
so deeply rooted that it dominated the practical side of 
religion, even after men worshipped deities that were not 
kindred gods. But among the other branches of the 
Semites also, the connection between religion and kinship 
is often manifested in forms that cannot be explained 
except by reference to a primitive stage of society, in 
which the circle of blood relations was also the circle 
of all religious and social unity. Nations, as dis- 
tinguished from mere clans, are not constructed on the 
principle of kinship, and yet the Semitic nations 
habitually feigned themselves to be of one kin, and. 
their national religions are deeply imbued, both ‘in 
legend and in ritual, with the idea that the god and 
his worshippers are of one stock. This, I apprehend, 
is good evidence that the fundamental lines of all 
Semitic religion were laid down, long before the begin- 
nings of authentic history, in that earliest stage of 
society when kinship was the only recognised type of 
permanent friendly relation between man and man, and 
therefore the only type on which it was possible to 
frame the conception. of a permanent ‘friendly relation 
between a group of men and-:a‘supernatural being. 
That all human societies have: been developed: from 
this stage is now generally recognised; and the evidence 
shows that amongst the Semites the historical forms of 
religion can be traced back to such a stage. - 

Recent researches into the history of the family render 


52 THE RELIGION LECT. II 
it in the highest degree improbable that the physical 
kinship between the god and his worshippers, of which 
traces are found all over the Semitic area, was originally 
conceived as fatherhood. It was the mother’s, not the 
father’s, blood which formed the original bond of kinship 
among the Semites as among other early peoples, and in 
this stage of society, if the tribal deity was thought of 
as the parent of the stock, a goddess, not a god, would 
necessarily have been the object of worship. In point 
of fact, goddesses play a great part in Semitic religion, 
and that not merely in the subordinate réle of wives of 
the gods; it is also noticeable that in various parts of 
the Semitic field we find deities originally female changing 
their sex and becoming gods, as if with the change in the 
rule of human kinship.’ So long as kinship was traced 
through the mother alone, a male deity of common stock 
with his worshippers could only be their cousin, or, in the 
language of that stage of society, their brother. This in 
fact is the relationship between gods and men asserted by 
Pindar, when he ascribes to both alike a common mother 
Earth, and among the Semites a trace of the same point 
of view may be seen in the class of proper names which 
designate their bearers as “brother” or “sister” of a deity.” 
If this be so, we must distinguish the religious significance 
belonging to the wider and older conception of kinship 
between the deity and the race that worshipped him, from 
the special and more advanced ideas, conformed to a higher 
stage of social development, that were added when the 
kindred god came to be revered as a father. 

Some of the most notable and constant features of 
all ancient heathenism, and indeed of all nature-religions, 


1 See Kinship, p. 298 sqq., note E. I hope to return to this subject on 
a future opportunity. 
2 See above, p. 45, note 2. 


LECT. IL OF KINSHIP 53 


from the totemism of savages upward, find their sufficient 
explanation in the physical kinship that unites the human 
and superhuman members of the same religious and social 
community, without reference to the special doctrine of 
divine fatherhood. From this point of view the natural 
solidarity of the god and his worshippers, which has been 
already enlarged upon as characteristic of antique religion, 
at once becomes intelligible; the indissoluble bond that 
unites men to their god is the same bond of blood-fellow- 
ship which in early society is the one binding link 
between man and man, and the one sacred principle of 
moral obligation. And thus we see that even in its 
rudest forms religion was a moral force; the powers 
that man reveres were on the side of social order and 
tribal law; and the fear of the gods was a motive to 
enforce the laws of society, which were also the laws of 
morality. 

But though the earliest nature-religion was fully 
identified with the earliest morality, it was not fitted 
to raise morality towards higher ideals; and instead of 
leading the way in social and ethical progress, it was often 
content to follow or even to lag behind. Religious feeling 
is naturally conservative, for it is bound up with old 
custom and usage; and the gods, who are approached 
only in traditional ritual, and invoked as giving sanction 
to long-established principles of conduct, seem always to 
be on the side of those who are averse to change. Among 
the Semites, as among other races, religion often came to 
work against a higher morality, not because it was in 
its essence a power for evil, but because it clung to the 
obsolete ethical standard of a bygone stage of society. 
To our better judgment, for example, one of the most 
offensive features in tribal religion is its particularism ; 
a man is held answerable to his god for wrong done to 


So | 


54 _ HE RELIGION LECT. i 
a member of his own kindred or political community, but 
he may deceive, rob, or kill an alien without offence to 
religion ; the deity cares only for his own kinsfolk. This 
is a very narrow morality, and we are tempted to call it 
sheer immorality. But such a judgment would be alto- 
gether false from an historical point of view. The larger 
morality which embraces all mankind has its basis in 
habits’ of loyalty, love, and self-sacrifice, which were 
originally formed and grew strong in the narrower circle 
of the family or the clan; and the part which the religion 
of kinship played in the development and maintenance 
of these’ habits, is one of the greatest services it has 
done to human progress. This service it was able to 
render because the gods were themselves members of 
the kin, and the man who was untrue to kindred duty 
had to reckon with them as with his human clansmen. 
An eloquent French writer has recently quoted with 
approval, and applied to the beginnings of Semitic religion, 
* the words of Statius, Primus in orbe deos fecit timor,’ 
“Man fancied himself surrounded by enemies whom he 
sought to appease.” But however true it is that savage 
man feels himself to be environed by innumerable dangers 
which he does not understand, and so personifies as invisible 
or mysterious enemies of more than human power, it is not 
true that the attempt to appease these powers is the founda- 
tion of religion. From the earliest times, religion, as distinct 
from magic or sorcery, addresses itself to kindred and 
friendly beings, who may indeed be angry with their people 
for a time, but are always placable except to the enemies 
of their worshippers or to renegade members of the com- 
munity. It is not with a vague fear of unknown powers, 
but with a loving reverence for known gods who are knit 
to their worshippers by strong bonds of kinship, that 
1 Renan, Hist. @’ Israel, i. 29. 


LECT. IL OF KINSHIP 65 


religion in the only true sense of the word begins. 
Religion in this sense is not the child of terror; and 
the difference between it and the savage’s dread of un- 
seen foes is as absolute and fundamental in the earliest 
as in the latest stages of development. It is only in 
times of social dissolution, as in the last age of the 
small Semitic states, when men and their gods were 
alike powerless before the advance of the Assyrians, that 
magical superstitions based on mere terror, or rites 
designed to conciliate alien gods, invade the sphere of 
tribal or national religion. In better times the religion 
of the tribe or state has nothing in common with the 
private and foreign superstitions or magical rites that 
savage terror may dictate to the individual. Religion 
is not an arbitrary relation of the individual man to a 
supernatural power, it is a relation of all the members 
of a community to a power that has the good of the 
community at heart, and protects its law and moral 
order. This distinction seems to have escaped some 
modern theorists, but it was plain enough to the common 
sense of antiquity, in which private and magical supersti- 
tions were habitually regarded as offences against morals 
and the state. It is not only in Israel that we find the 
suppression of magical rites to be one of the first cares of 
the founder of the kingdom, or see the introduction of 
foreign worships treated as a heinous crime. In _ both 
respects the law of Israel is the law of every well-ordered 
ancient community. 

In the historical stage of Semitic religion the kinship 
of the deity with his or her people is specified as father- 
hood or motherhood, the former conception predominating, 
in accordance with the later rule that assigned the son to 
his father’s stock. Under the law of male kinship woman 
takes a subordinate place; the father is the natural head 


56 FEMALE DEITIES LECT. 1 


of the family, and superior to the mother, and accordingly 
the chief place in religion usually belongs, not to a mother- 
goddess, but to a father-god. At the same time the concep- 
tion of the goddess-mother was not unknown, and seems 
to be attached to cults which go back to the ages of 
polyandry and female kinship. The Babylonian Ishtar in 
her oldest form is such a mother-goddess, unmarried, or 
rather choosing her temporary partners at will, the queen 
head and firstborn of all gods.1_ She is the mother of the 
gods and also the mother of men, who, in the Chaldean 
flood-legends, mourns over the death of her offspring. 
In like manner the Carthaginians worshipped a “great 
mother,” who seems to be identical with Tanith-Artemis, 
the “heavenly virgin,’? and the Arabian Lat was 
‘ worshipped by the Nabateans as mother of the gods, and 
must be identified with the virgin-mother, whose worship 
at Petra is described by Epiphanius.® 


1 Tiele, Babylonisch-Assyrische Gesch. p. 528. . 

2n37 ON, CIS. Nos. 195, 380; cf. No. 177. The identification of 
Tanith with Artemis appears from No. 116, where NINIIYP='Aprsuidwpos, and 
is confirmed by the prominence of the virgo celestis or numen virginale in 
the later cults of Punic Africa. The identification of the mother of the gods 
with the heavenly virgin, ¢.e. the unmarried goddess, is confirmed if not 
absolutely demanded by Aug. Civ. Dei, ii. 4. At Carthage she seems also 
to be identical with Dido, of whom as a goddess more in another connection. 
See Hoffmann, Veb. einige Phan. Inschrr. p. 32 sg. The foul type of worship 
corresponding to the conception of the goddess as polyandrous prevailed at 
Sicca Veneria, and Augustin speaks with indignation of the incredible 
obscenity of the songs that accompanied the worship of the Carthaginian 
mother-goddess ; but perhaps this is not wholly to be set down as of Punic 
origin, for the general laxity on the point of female chastity in which such a 
type of worship originates has always been characteristic of North Africa (see 
Tissot, La Prov. d’ Afrique, i. 477). 

3 De Vogiié, Syr. Centr. Inscr. Nab. No. 8 ; Epiph., Panariwm 51 (ii. 483, 
Dind.), see Kinship, p. 298 sq. I am not able to follow the argument by 
which Wellh.', pp. 40, 46, seeks to invalidate the evidence as to the worship 
of a mother-goddess by the Nabatzeans. He supposes that the XaaSov, which 
Epiphanius represents as the virgin-mother of Dusares, is really nothing 
more than the cippus, or betyl, out of which the god was supposed to have 
been born, 7.e. the image of the god himself, not a distinct deity. But from 
the time of Herodotus downwards, al-Lat was worshipped in these regions 


lS ee _— 


LECT. IL. AS MOTHERS 57 


Originally, since men are of one stock with their gods, 
the mother of the gods must also have been, like Ishtar, 
the mother of men; but except in Babylonia and Assyria, 
where the kings at least continued to speak of themselves 
as the progeny of Ishtar, it is not clear that this idea was 
present to the Semitic worshipper when he addressed _ his 
goddess as the great mother. But if we may judge from 
analogy, and even from such modern analogies as are 
supplied by the cult of the Virgin Mary, we can hardly 
doubt that the use of a name appropriated to the tenderest 
and truest of human relationships was associated in acts 
of worship with feelings of peculiar warmth and trustful 
devotion. “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that 
she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? 
Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.”? 
That such thoughts were not wholly foreign to Semitic 
heathenism appears, to give a single instance, from the 


side by side with a god, and the evidence of De Vogiié’s inscription and 
that of Epiphanius agree in making Lat the mother and the god her 
son. Epiphanius implies that the virgin-mother was worshipped also at 
Elusa; and here Jerome, in his life of S. Hilarion, knows a temple of a 
goddess whom he calls Venus, and who was worshipped ‘‘ ob Luciferum,” 
on account of her connection with the morning star. Wellhausen takes 
this to mean that the goddess of Elusa was identified with the morning star; 
but that is impossible, for, in his comm. on Amos v., Jerome plainly indi- 
cates that the morning star was worshipped as a god, not as a goddess, 
This is the old Semitic conception ; see Isa. xiv. 12, ‘‘ Lucifer, son of the 
Dawn” ; and in the Arabian poets, also, the planet Venus is masculine, as 
Wellhausen himself observes. I see no reason to believe that the Arabs of 
Nilus worshipped the morning star as a goddess; nor perhaps does the 
worship of this planet as a goddess (Al-‘Ozza) appear anywhere in Arabia, 
except among the Eastern tribes who came under the influence of the 
Assyrian Ishtar-worship, as it survived among the Arameans. This point 
was not clear to me when I wrote my Kinship, and want of attention to 
it has brought some confusion into the argument. That the goddess of 
Elusa was Al-‘Ozza, as Wellh., p. 48, supposes, is thus very doubtful. 
Whether, as Tuch thought, her local name was Khalasa is also doubtful, but 
we must not reject the identification of Elusa with the place still called 
Khalasa; see Palmer, Desert of the Exodus, p. 423, compared with p. 550 sqq, 
1 [sa. xlix. 15, 


58 FEMALE DEITIES LECT. 1, 
language in which Assurbanipal appeals to Ishtar in his 
time of need, and in the oracle she sends to comfort 
him." 

But in this, as in all its aspects, heathenism shows its 
fundamental weakness, in its inability to separate the 
ethical motives of religion from their source in a merely 
naturalistic conception of the godhead and its relation to 
man. Divine motherhood, like the kinship of men and 
gods in general, was to the heathen Semites a physical 
fact, and the development of the corresponding cults and 
myths laid more stress on the physical than on the ethical 
side of maternity, and gave a prominence to sexual ideas 
which was never edifying, and often repulsive. Especially 
was this the case when the change in the law of kinship 
deprived the mother of her old pre-eminence in the family, 
and transferred to the father the greater part of her 
authority and. dignity. This change, as we know, went 
hand in hand with the abolition of the old polyandry; and 
as women lost the right to choose their own partners at 
will, the wife became subject to her husband’s lordship, 
and her freedom of action was restrained by his jealousy, 
at; the same time that her children became, for all purposes 
of inheritance and all duties of blood, members of his and 
not of her kin. So far as religion kept pace with the 
new laws of social morality due to this development, 
the independent divine mother necessarily became the 
subordinate partner of a male deity; and so the old 
polyandrous Ishtar reappears in Canaan and elsewhere 
as Astarte, the wife of the supreme Baal. Or if the 
supremacy of the goddess was too well established to be 
thus undermined, she might change her sex, as in Southern 
Arabia, where Ishtar is transformed into the masculine 


‘George Smith, <Assurbanipal, p. 117 sqq.; Records of the Past, ix. 
51 sqq. 


LECT. 11. AS MOTHERS 59 
‘Athtar. But not seldom religious tradition refused tc 
move forward with the progress of society; the goddess 
retained her old character as a mother who was not a 
wife bound to fidelity to her husband, and at her sanctuary 
she protected, under the name of religion, the sexual 
licence of savage society, or even demanded of the 
daughters of her worshippers a shameful sacrifice of their 
chastity, before they were permitted to bind themselves 
for the rest of their lives to that conjugal fidelity which 
their goddess despised. 

The emotional side of Semitic heathenism was always 
very much connected with the worship of female deities, 
partly through the associations of maternity, which 
appealed to the purest and tenderest feelings, and 
partly through other associations connected with woman, 
which too often appealed to the sensuality so strongly 
developed in the Semitic race. The feelings called forth 
when the deity was conceived as a father were on the 
whole of an austerer kind, for the distinctive note of 
fatherhood, as distinguished from kinship in general, lay 
mainly in the parental authority, in the father’s claim to 
be honoured and served by his son. The honour which 
the fifth commandment requires children to pay to their 
fathers is named in Mal. i. 6 along with that which a 
servant owes to his master, and the same prophet (iii. 17) 
‘speaks of the considerate regard which a father shows 
for “the son that serveth him.” To this day the grown-up 
son in Arabia serves his father in much the same offices 
as the domestic slave, and approaches him with much the 
same degree of reverence and even of constraint. It is 
only with his little children that the father is effusively 
affectionate and on quite easy terms. On the other hand, 
the father’s authority had not a despotic character. He 
had no such power of life and death over his sons as 


60 THE GOD AS FATHER LECT. 01 


Roman law recognised,! and indeed, after they passed 
beyond childhood, had no means of enforcing his authority 
if they refused to respect it. Paradoxical as this may 
seem, it is quite in harmony with the general spirit of 
Semitic institutions that authority should exist and be 
generally acknowledged without having any force behind 
it except the pressure of public opinion. The authority 
of an Arab sheikh is in the same position; and when an 
Arab judge pronounces sentence on a culprit, it is at the 
option of the latter whether he will pay the fine, which is 
the invariable form of penalty, or continue in feud with 
his accuser. 

Thus, while the conception of the tribal god as father 


: 
| 


* introduces into religion the idea of divine authority, of 
reverence and service due from the worshipper to the 
deity, it does not carry with it any idea of the strict and 
rigid enforcement of divine commands by supernatural 
sanctions. The respect paid by the Semite to his father 
is but the respect which he pays to kindred, focussed 
upon a single representative person, and the father’s 
authority is only a special manifestation of the authority 
of the kin, which can go no further than the whole kin is 
prepared to back it. Thus, in the sphere of religion, the 
god, as father, stands by the majority of the tribe in 
enforcing tribal law against refractory members: outlawry, 
which is the only punishment ordinarily applicable to 
a clansman, carries with it excommunication from religious 
communion, and the man who defies tribal law has to fear 

1See Deut. xxi. 18, where the word ‘‘ chastened” should rather be 
‘*admonished.” The powerlessness of Jacob to restrain his grown-up sons is 
not related as a proof that he was weak, but shows that a father had no means 
of enforcing his authority. The law of Deuteronomy can hardly have been 
carried into practice. In Prov. xxx. 17 disobedience to parents is cited as 
a thing which brings a man to a bad end, not as a thing punished by law. 


That an Arab father could do no more than argue with his son, and bring 
tribal opinion to bear on him, appears from 4gh. xix 102 sq. 


ore. = ee Soe 


LECT. II. OF HIS WORSHIPPERS 61 
the god as well as his fellow-men. But in all minor 
matters, where outlawry is out of the question, the long- 
suffering tolerance which tribesmen in early society 
habitually extend to the offences of their fellow-tribesmen 
is ascribed also to the god; he does not willingly break 
with any of his worshippers, and accordingly a bold and 
wilful man does not hesitate to take considerable liberties 
with the paternal deity. As regards his worshippers at 
large, it appears scarcely conceivable, from the point of 
view of tribal religion, that the god can be so much 
displeased with anything they do that his anger can go 
beyond a temporary estrangement, which is_ readily 
terminated by their repentance, or even by a mere change 
of humour on the part of the god, when his permanent 
affection for his own gets the better of his momentary 
displeasure, as it is pretty sure to do if he sees them to 
be in straits, eg. to be hard pressed by their and his 
enemies. On the whole, men live on very easy terms 
with their tribal god, and his paternal authority is neither 
strict nor exacting. 

This is a very characteristic feature of heathen religion, 
and one which does not disappear when the god of the 
community comes to be thought of as king rather than as 
father. The inscription of King Mesha, for example, tells 
us that Chemosh was angry with his people, and suffered 
Israel to oppress Moab; and then again that Chemosh 
fought for Moab, and delivered it from the foe. There is 
no explanation offered of the god’s change of mind; it 
appears to be simply taken for granted that he was tired 
of seeing his people put to the worse. In like manner 
the mass of the Hebrews before the exile received with 
blank incredulity the prophetic teaching, that Jehovah was 
ready to enforce His law of righteousness even by the 
destruction of the sinful commonwealth of Israel. To the 


62 THE GOD AS KING LECT. II. 


prophets Jehovah’s long-suffermg meant the patience with 
which He offers repeated calls to repentance, and defers 
punishment while there is hope of amendment; but to 
the heathen, and to the heathenly-minded in Israel, the 
long-suffering of the goas meant a disposition to overlook 
the offences of their worshippers. 

To reconcile the forgiving goodness of God with His 
absolute justice, is one of the highest problems of spiritual 
religion, which in Christianity is solved by the doctrine of 
the atonement. It is important to realise that in heathen- 
ism this problem never arose in the form in which the 
New Testament deals with it, not because the gods of the 
heathen were not conceived as good and gracious, but 
because they were not absolutely just. This lack of strict 
justice, however, is not. to be taken as meaning that the 
gods were in their nature unjust, when measured by the 
existing standards of social righteousness; as a rule they 
were conceived as sympathising with right conduct, but 
not as rigidly enforcing it in every case. To us, who are 
accustomed to take an abstract view of the divine attri- 
butes, this is difficult to conceive, but it seemed perfectly 
natural when the divine sovereignty was conceived as a 
kingship precisely similar to human kingship. 

In its beginnings, human kingship was as little absolute 
as the authority of the fathers and elders of the clan, 
for it was not supported by an executive organisation 
sufficient to carry out the king’s sentence of justice or 
constrain. obedience to his decrees. The authority of the 
prince was moral rather than physical; his business was 
to guide rather than to dictate the conduct of his free 
subjects, to declare what was just rather than to enforce it.’ 


1—In Aramaic the root MLK (from which the common Semitic word for 
‘‘king”’ is derived) means ‘‘ to advise”; and in Arabic the word Amir, 
‘‘commander,” ‘‘ prince,” also means ‘‘ adviser”; ‘Orwa b. al-Ward, i. 16, 
and schol. 


LECT. II. OF HIS PEOPLE 63 


Thus the limitations of royal power went on quite an 
opposite principle from that which underlies a modern 
limited monarchy. With us the king or his government 
is armed with the fullest authority to enforce law and 
justice, and the limitations of his power lie in the 
independence of the legislature and the judicial courts. 
The old Semitic king, on the contrary, was supreme judge, 
and his decrees were laws, but neither his sentences nor 
his decrees could take effect unless they were supported 
by forces over which he had very imperfect control. He 
simply threw his weight into the scale, a weight which 
was partly due to the moral effect of his sentence, and 
partly to the material resources which he commanded, not 
so much gud king as in the character of a great noble and 
the head of a powerful circle of kinsfolk and clients. An 
energetic sovereign, who had gained wealth and prestige 
by successful wars, or inherited the resources accumu- 
lated by a line of kingly ancestors, might wield almost 
despotic power, and in a stable dynasty the tendency was 
towards the gradual establishment of absolute monarchy, 
especially if the royal house was able to maintain a 
standing army devoted to its interests. But a pure 
despotism of the modern Eastern type probably had not 
been reached by any of the small kingdoms that were 
crushed by the Assyrian empire, and certainly the ideas 
which underlay the conception of divine sovereignty date 
from an age when the human kingship was still in a 
rudimentary state, when its executive strength was very 
limited, and the sovereign was in no way held responsible 
for the constant maintenance of law and order in all parts 
of his realm. In most matters of internal order he was 
not expected to interfere unless directly appealed to by 
one or other party in a dispute, and even then it was not 
certain that the party in whose favour he decided would 


64 THE GOD AS KING LECT. 0 


a 


not be left to make good his rights with the aid of his own 
family connections. So loose a system of administration 
did not offer a pattern on which to frame the conception 
of a constant unremitting divine providence, overlooking 
no injustice and suffering no right to be crushed; the 
national god might be good and just, but was not con- 
tinually active or omnipresent in his activity. But we 
are not to suppose that this remissness was felt to bea 
defect in the divine character. The Semitic nature is 
impatient of control, and has no desire to be strictly 
governed either by human or by divine authority. A god 
who could be reached when he was wanted, but usually 
left men pretty much to themselves, was far more accept- 
able than one whose ever watchful eye can neither be 
avoided nor deceived. What the Semitic communities 
asked, and believed themselves to receive, from their god as 
king lay mainly in three things: help against their enemies, 
counsel by oracles or soothsayers in matters of national 
difficulty, and a sentence of justice when a case was too 
hard for human decision. The valour, the wisdom, and 
the justice of the nation looked to him as their head, and 
were strengthened by his support in time of need. For 
the rest it was not expected that he should always be busy 
righting human affairs. In ordinary matters it was men’s 
business to help themselves and their own kinsfolk, though 
the sense that the god was always near, and could be 
called upon at need, was a moral force continually working 
in some degree for the maintenance of social righteousness 
and order. The strength of this moral force was indeed 
very uncertain, for it was always possible for the evil- 
doer to flatter himself that his offence would be overlooked; 
but even so uncertain an influence of religion over conduct 
was of no little use in the slow and difficult process of the 
consolidation of an orderly society out of barbarism. 


LECT. [1 OF HIS PEOPLE 65 


As a social and political force, in the earlier stages of 
Semitic society, antique religion cannot be said to have 
failed in its mission; but it was too closely modelled on 
the traditional organisation of the family and the nation 
to retain a healthful vitality when the social system was 
violently shattered. Among the northern Semites the 
age of Assyrian conquest proved as critical for religious 
as for civil history, for from that time forward the old 
religion was quite out of touch with the actualities of 
social life, and became almost wholly mischievous. But 
apart from the Assyrian catastrophe, there are good reasons 
to think that in the eighth century Bc. the national 
religion of the northern Semites had already passed its 
prime, and was sinking into decadence. The moral springs 
of conduct which it touched were mainly connected with 
the first needs of a rude society, with the community’s 
instinct of self-preservation. The enthusiasm of religion 
was seen only in times of peril, when the nation, under 
its divine head, was struggling for national existence. In 
times of peace and prosperity, religion had little force to 
raise man above sensuality and kindle him to right and 
noble deeds. Except when the nation was in danger, it 
called for no self-denial, and rather encouraged an easy 
sluggish indulgence in the good things that were enjoyed 
under the protection of the national god. The evils that 
slowly sap society, the vices that at first sight seem too 
private to be matters of national concern, the disorders 
that accompany the increase and unequal distribution of 
wealth, the relaxation of moral fibre produced by luxury 
and sensuality, were things that religion hardly touched 
at all, and that the easy, indulgent god could hardly be 
thought to take note of. The God who could deal with 
such evils was the God of the prophets, no mere Oriental 
king raised to a throne in heaven, but the just and jealous 

5 


66 THE GOD LECT. Ni, 


God, whose eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and 
the good, who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and 
cannot look upon iniquity.t 

In what precedes I have thought it convenient to 
assume for the moment, without breaking the argument 
by pausing to offer proof, that among the Semitic peoples 
which got beyond the mere tribal stage and developed a 
tolerably organised state, the supreme deity was habitually 
thought of as king. The definitive proof that this was 
really so must be sought in the details of religious practice, 
to which we shall come by and by, and in which we shall 
find indicated a most realistic conception of the divine 
kingship. Meantime some proofs of a different character 
may be briefly indicated. In the Old Testament the king- 
ship of Jehovah is often set forth as the glory of Israel, but 
never in such terms as to suggest that the idea of divine 
kingship was peculiar to the Hebrews. On the contrary, 
other nations are “the kingdoms of the false gods.”2 In 
two exceptional cases a pious judge or a prophet appears 
to express the opinion that Jehovah’s sovereignty is in- 
consistent with human kingship? such as existed in the 
surrounding nations; but this difficulty was never felt by 
the mass of the Israelites, nor even by the prophets in the 
regal period, and it was certainly not felt by Israel’s 
neighbours. If a son could be crowned in the lifetime of 
his father, as was done in the case of Solomon, or could act 
for his father as Jotham acted for Uzziah,t there was no 
difficulty in looking on the human king as the viceroy of 
the divine sovereign, who, as we have seen, was often 
believed to be the father of the royal race, and so to lend 
a certain sanctity to the dynasty. Accordingly we find 
that the Tyrian Baal bears the title of Melcarth, “king of 


1 Prov. xv. 3; Hab. i. 13. 2 Isa. x. 10. 
5 Judg. viii. 23; 1 Sam. xii. 12, *1 Kings i, 32 sgq.; 2 Kings xv. 5. 


| 
i 
: 
‘ 


LECT. I. AS KING 67 


the city,” or more fully, “our lord Melcarth, the Baal of 
Tyre,’1 and this sovereignty was acknowledged by the 
Carthaginian colonists when they paid tithes at his temple 
in the mother city ; for in the East tithes are the king’s 
due.” Similarly the supreme god of the Ammonites was 
Milkom or Malkam, which is only a variation of Melek, 
“king.” The familiar Moloch or Molech is the same thing 
in a distorted pronunciation, due to the scruples of the 
later Jews, who furnished the consonants of the word 
MLK with the vowels of bosheth, “shameful thing,” when- 
ever it was to be understood as the title of a false god. 
In Babylonia and Assyria the application of royal titles to 
deities is too common to call for special exemplification. 
Again, we have Malakhbel, “ King Bel,” as the great god 
of the Arameans of Palmyra; but in this and other 
examples of later date it is perhaps open to suppose 
that the kingship of the supreme deity means his sove- 
reignty over other gods rather than over his worshippers. 
On the other hand, a large mass of evidence can be 
drawn from proper names of religious significance, in 
which the god of the worshipper is designated as king. 
Such names were as common among the Pheenicians and 
Assyrians as they were among the Israelites, and are 


1 O7S. No. 122. 
2 Diod. xx. 14; and for the payment of tithes to the king, 1 Sam. viii. 
15, 17; Aristotle, @con. ii. p. 13526 of the Berlin ed., cf. p. 1845 6. 


sabnbnx, CIS. No. 50, cf. byron, No. 54; Jomin', King of Byblus, 
No. 1, ef. Gyaim, No. 69; maby, Nos. 10, 16, etc., ef. mya, No. 78; jM"EW4, 
No. 44; oO 729, No. 46, cf. IDSTAY, OYNTIY, etc.; Trt, Nos. 189, 219, 
386, cf. Syary, on a coin of Byblus, Head, p. 668. The title of nadp, 
‘‘queen,” for Astarte is seen probably in nsdn, nodenn (supra, p. 45, 
note 2), and more certainly in nodpnn, ‘“‘handmaid of the queen,” cf. 
nmanwynd, No. 83, and in nadpy9, ‘favour of the queen,” No. 41. For 
Assyrian names of similar type see Schrader in ZDMG. xxvi. 140 sqq., 
where also an Edomite king’s name on a cylinder of Sennacherib is read 
Malik-ramu, ‘‘ the (divine) king, is exalted.”’ 


68 THE WORSHIPPER LECT. IL 


found even among the Arabs of the Syrian and Egyptian 
frontier. 

Where the god is conceived as a king, he will naturally 
be addressed as lord, and his worshippers will be spoken 
of as his subjects, and so we find as divine titles Adon, 
“lord” (whence Adonis = the god Tammuz), and Rabbath, 
“lady ” (as a title of Tanith), among the Pheenicians, with 
corresponding phrases among other nations,” while in all 
parts of the Semitic field the worshipper calls himself the 
servant or slave (‘abd, ‘ebed) of his god, just as a subject 


does in addressing his king. The designation “servant” 


is much affected by worshippers, and forms the basis of a 
large number of theophorous proper names— Abd-Eshmun 
“servant of Eshmun,” ‘Abd-Baal, “Abd-Osir, ete. At first 
sight this designation seems to point to a more rigid con- 
ception of divine kingship than I have presented, for it is 
only under a strict despotism that the subject is the slave 
of the monarch; nay, it has been taken as a fundamental 
distinction between Semitic religion and that of the Greeks, 
that in the one case the relation of man to his god is 
servile, while in the other it is not so. But this conclu- 
sion rests on the neglect of a nicety of language, a refine- 
ment of Semitic politeness). When a man addresses any 
superior he calls him “ my lord,” and speaks of himself and 
others as “thy servants,”? and this form of politeness is 

1 Big. Koruarayos, EApadrayos, *‘ Cos, El is king,” Rev. Arch. 1870, pp. 
115,117; Schrader (see KAT’. p. 473) reads Kausmalak as the name of an 


Edomite king on an inscription of Tiglathpileser. For the god Caus, or 
Cos, see Wellhausen, Heidenthum, p. 67; cf. ZDMG. 1887, p. 714. 

2 E.g. Nabatean Rab, ‘‘ Lord,” in the proper name Seon (Euting, 21. 3, 
21.14; Waddington, 2152, 2189, 2298), and at Gaza the god Marna, that is, 
‘four Lord,” both on coins (Head, p. 680), and in M. Diaconus, Vita 
Porphyrii, §19; also at Kerak, Wadd. 24129. 

3 This holds good for Hebrew and Aramaic ; also for Phenician (Schroder, 
Phon. Spr. p. 18, n. 5); and even in Arabia an old poet says: ‘‘I am the 
slave of my guest as long as he is with me, but save in this there is no 
trace of the slave in my nature” (Hamasa, p. 727). 


LECT, II. AS SERVANT 69 


naturally de rayueur in presence of the king; but where the 
king is not addressed, his “servants” mean his courtiers 
that are in personal attendance on him, or such of his 
subjects as are actually engaged in his service, for example, 
his soldiers. In the Old Testament this usage is constant, 
and the king’s servants are often distinguished from the 
people at large. And so the servants of Jehovah are 
sometimes the prophets, who hold a special commission 
from Him; at other times, as often in the Psalms, His 
worshipping people assembled at the temple; and at other 
times, as in Deutero-Isaiah, His true servants as dis- 
tinguished from the natural Israel, who are His subjects 
only in name. In short, both in the political and in the 
religious sphere, the designation ‘abd, ‘ebed, “servant,” is 
strictly correlated with the verb ‘abad, “to do service, 
homage, or religious worship,” a word which, as we have 
already seen, is sufficiently elastic to cover the service 
which a son does for his father, as well as that which a 
master requires from his slave... Thus, when a man is 
named the servant of a god, the implication appears to be, 
not merely that he belongs to the community of which the 
god is king, but that he is specially devoted to his service 
and worship. Like other theophorous names, compounds 
with ‘abd seem to have been originally most common in 
royal and priestly families, whose members naturally 
claimed a special interest in religion and a constant near- 
ness to the god; and in later times, when a man’s particular 
worship was not rigidly defined by his national connection, 
they served to specify the cult to which he was particularly 
attached, or the patron to whom his parents dedicated him. 
That the use of such names was not connected with the 


1 Supra, p. 60. Primarily ay is ‘‘to work,” and in Aramaic ‘‘to 
make, to do.” Ancient worship is viewed as work or service, because it 
consists in material operations (sacrifice). The same connection of ideas 
appears in the root nbp and in the Greek peter bea, 


70 THE GOD AS A CHIEF LECT. 11. 


idea of slavery to a divine despot is pretty clear from their 
frequency among the Arabs, who had very loose ideas of 
all authority, whether human or divine. Among the 
Arabs, indeed, as among the old Hebrews, the relation of 
the subject to his divine chief is often expressed by names 
of another class. Of King Saul’s sons two were named 
Ishbaal and Meribaal, both meaning “man of Baal,’ «ae. of 
Jehovah, who in these early days was called Baal without 
offence; among the Arabs of the Syrian frontier we have 
Amriel, “man of El,” Amrishams, “man of the Sun-god,” 
and others like them;! and in Arabia proper Imraulcais, 
“the man of Cais,’ Shai‘ al-Lat, “follower, comrade of 
Lat,” Anas al-Lat, all expressive of the relation of the free 
warrior to his chief. 

That the Arabs, like their northern congeners, thought 
of deity as lordship or chieftainship is proved not only by 
such proper names, and by the titles rab, rabbi, “ lord,” 
“lady,” given to their gods and goddesses, but especially 
by the history of the foundation of Islam. In his quality 
of prophet, Mohammed became a judge, lawgiver, and 
captain, not of his own initiative, but because the Arabs of 
different clans were willing to refer to a divine authority 
questions of right and precedence in which they would not 
yield to one another.2, They brought their difficulties to 
the prophet as the Israelites did to Moses, and his decisions 
became the law of Islam, as those of Moses were the 
foundation of the Hebrew Torah. But up to the time of 
the prophet the practical development of the idea of divine 
kingship among the nomadic Arabs was very elementary 
and inadequate, as was to be expected in a society which 
had never taken kindly to the institution of human king- 


' Noldeke, Sitzwngsb. Berl. Ak. 1880, p. 768; Wellhausen, Heidenthum, 
p. 5. : 
2 Yor the god as giver of decisions, compare the name farrdd, borne by an 
idol of the Sa‘d al-‘ashira (Ibn Sa‘d, ed. Wellh. No. 1246), 


: 
: 


LECT. II, IN ARABIA | 


ship. In the prosperous days of Arabian commerce, when 
the precious wares of the far East reached the Mediter- 
ranean chiefly by caravan from Southern Arabia, there were 
settled kingdoms in several parts of the peninsula. But 
after the sea-route to India was opened, these kingdoms 
were broken up and almost the whole country fell back 
into anarchy. The nomads proper often felt the want 
of a controlling authority that would put an end to the 
incessant tribal and clan feuds, but their pride and im- 
patience of control never permitted them to be long faithful 
to the authority of a stranger; while, on the other hand, 
the exaggerated feeling for kindred made it quite certain 
that a chief chosen at home would not deal with an even 
hand between his own kinsman and a person of different 
blood. Thus, after the fall of the Yemenite and Nabatzan 
kingdoms, which drew their strength from commerce, there 
was no permanently successful attempt to consolidate a 
body of several tribes into a homogeneous state, except 
under Roman or Persian suzerainty. The decay of the 
power of religion in the peninsula in the last days of 
Arab heathenism presents a natural parallel to this con- 
dition of political disintegration. The wild tribesmen had 
lost the feeling of kinship with their tribal gods, and had 
not learned to yield steady submission and obedience to 
any power dissociated from kinship. Their religion sat 
as loose on them as their allegiance to this or that human 
king whom for a season they might find it convenient to 
obey, and they were as ready to renounce their deities in a 
moment of petulance and disgust as to transfer their service 
from one petty sovereign to another. 

1 Religion had more strength in towns like Mecca and Taif, where there 
was a sanctuary, and the deity lived in the midst of his people, and was 
honoured by stated and frequent acts of worship. So under Islam, the 


Bedouins have never taken kindly to the laws of the Coran, and live in 
entire neglect of the most simple ordinances of religion, while the townsmen 


v2 KINGSHIP IN THE EAST LECT. I. 


Up to this point we have considered the conception, or 
rather the institution, of divine sovereignty as based on 
the fundamental type of Semitic kingship, when the nation 
was still made up of free tribesmen, retaining their tribal 
organisation and possessing the sense of personal dignity 
and independence engendered by the tribal system, where 
all clansmen are brothers, and where each man feels that 
his brethren need him and that he can count on the help 
of his brethren. There is no principle so levelling as the 
law of blood-revenge, which is the basis of the tribal 
system, for here the law is man for man, whether in 
defence or in offence, without respect of persons. In such 
a society the king is a guiding and moderating force rather 
than an imperial power; he is the leader under whom men 
of several tribes unite for common action, and the arbiter 
in cases of difficulty or of irreconcilable dispute between 
two kindreds, when neither will humble itself before the 
other. The kingship, and therefore the godhead, is not a 
principle of absolute order and justice, but it is a principle 
of higher order and more impartial justice than can be 
realised where there is no other law than the obligation 
of blood. As the king waxes stronger, and is better able 
to enforce his will by active interference in his subjects’ 
quarrels, the standard of right is gradually raised above the 
consideration which disputant has the strongest kin to back 
him, for it is the glory of the sovereign to vindicate the 
cause of the weak, if only because by so doing he shows 
himself to be stronger than the strong. And as the god, 
though not conceived as omnipotent, is at least conceived 
as much stronger than man, he becomes in a special 
measure the champion of right against might, the protector 


are in their way very devout. Much of this religion is hypocrisy ; but so it 
was, to judge by the accounts of the conversion of the Thacif at Taif, even 
in the time of Mohammed. Religion was a matter of custom, of keeping 
up appearances. 


LECT. I. AND IN THE WEST 73 


of the poor, the widow and the fatherless, of the man who 
has no helper on earth. 

Now it is matter of constant observation in early history 
that the primitive equality of the tribal system tends in 
progress of time to transform itself into an aristocracy of 
the more powerful kins, or of the more powerful families 
within one kin. That is, the smaller and weaker kins are 
content to place themselves in a position of dependence 
on their more powerful neighbours in order to secure their 
protection; or even within one and the same kin men 
distinguish between their nearer and more distant cousins, 
and, as wealth begins to be unequally distributed, the great 
man’s distant and poor relation has to be content with a 
distant and supercilious patronage, and sinks into a position 
of inferiority. The kingship is the one social force that 
works against this tendency, for it is the king’s interest to 
maintain a balance of power, and prevent the excessive 
agerandisement of noble families that might compete with 
his own authority. Thus even for selfish reasons the 
sovereign is more and more brought into the position of 
the champion of the weak against the strong, of the masses 
against the aristocracy. Generally speaking, the struggle 
between king and nobles to which these conditions give 
rise ended differently in the East and in the West. In 
Greece and Rome the kingship fell before the aristocracy ; 
in Asia the kingship held its own, till in the larger states 
it developed into despotism, or in the smaller ones it was 
crushed by a foreign despotism. This diversity of political 
fortune is reflected in the diversity of religious develop- 
ment. For as the national god did not at first supersede 
tribal and family deities any more than the king super- 
seded tribal and family institutions, the tendency of the 
West, where the kingship succumbed, was towards a 
divine aristocracy of many gods, only modified by a weak 


74 MONARCHY AND LECT. II 
reminiscence of the old kingship in the not very effective 
sovereignty of Zeus, while in the East the national god 
tended to acquire a really monarchic sway. What is 
often described as the natural tendency of Semitic religion 
* towards ethical monotheism, is in the main nothing more 
than a consequence of the alliance of religion with 
monarchy. For however corrupt the actual kingships of 
the East became, the ideal of the kingship as a source of 
even-handed justice throughout the whole nation, without 
respect of persons, was higher than the ideal of aristocracy, 
in which each noble is expected to favour his own family 
even at the expense of the state or of justice; and it is on 
the ideal, rather than on the actual, that religious concep- 
tions are based, if not in ordinary minds, at least in the 
minds of more thoughtful and pious men. At the same 
time the idea of absolute and ever-watchful divine justice, 
as we find it in the prophets, is no more natural to the 
Kast than to the West, for even the ideal Semitic king is, 
as we have seen, a very imperfect earthly providence, and 
moreover he has a different standard of right for his own 


people and for strangers. The prophetic idea that Jehovah 
will vindicate the right even in the destruction of His own 
people of Israel, involves an ethical standard as foreign to 
Semitic as to Aryan tradition. Thus, as regards their ; 
ethical tendency, the difference between Eastern and Western 
religion is one of degree rather than of principle; all that 
we can say is that the East was better prepared to receive 
the idea of a god of absolute righteousness, because its 
political institutions and history, and, not least, the enor- 
mous gulf between the ideal and the reality of human 
sovereignty, directed men’s minds to appreciate the need of 
righteousness more strongly, and accustomed them to look 
to a power of monarchic character as its necessary source. 
A similar judgment must be passed on the supposed mono- 


LECT. I. MONOTHEISM 75 


theistic tendency of the Semitic as opposed to the Hellenic 
or Aryan systein of religion. Neither system, in its natural 
development, can fairly be said to have come near to 
monotheism ; the difference touched only the equality or 
subordination of divine powers. But while in Greece the 
idea of the unity of God was a philosophical speculation, - 
without any definite point of attachment to actual religion, 
the monotheism of the Hebrew prophets kept touch with 
the ideas and institutions of the Semitic race by conceiving 
the one true God as the king of absolute justice, the 
national God of Israel, who at the same time was, or 
rather was destined to become, the God of all the earth, 
not merely because His power was world-wide, but because 
as the perfect ruler He could not fail to draw all nations 
to do Him homage (Isa. ii. 2 sqq.). 

When I speak of the way in which the prophets con- 
ceived of Jehovah’s sovereignty, as destined to extend itself 
beyond Israel and over all the earth, I touch on a feature 
common to all Semitic religions, which must be explained 
and defined before we can properly understand wherein 
the prophets transcended the common sphere of Semitic 
thought, and which indeed is necessary to complete our 
view of the ultimate development of the Semitic religions 
as tribal and national institutions. 

From a very early date the Semitic communities em- 
braced, in addition to the free tribesmen of pure blood 
(Heb. ezrah, Arab. sarth) with their families and slaves, a 
class of men who were personally free but had no political 
rights, viz. the protected strangers (Heb. gérim, sing. gér ; 
Arab. jirdn, sing. jar), of whom mention is so often made 
both in the Old Testament and in early Arabic literature. 
The gér was a man of another tribe or district, who, coming 
to sojourn in a place where he was not strengthened by 
the presence of his own kin, put himself under the pro- 


76 THE WORSHIPPER AS LECT, IL 


tection of a clan or of a powerful chief. From the earliest 
times of Semitic life the lawlessness of the desert, in which 
every stranger is an enemy, has been tempered by the 
principle that the guest is inviolable. A man is safe in 
the midst of enemies as soon as he enters a tent or even 
touches the tent rope! To harm a guest, or to refuse him 
hospitality, is an offence against honour, which covers the 
perpetrator with indelible shame. The bond of hospitality 
among the Arabs is temporary; the guest is entertained 
for a night or at most for three days, and the protection 
which the host owes to him expires after three days 
more. But more permanent protection is seldom refused 
to a stranger who asks for it, and when granted by any 
tribesman it binds the whole tribe. ‘The obligation thus 
constituted is one of honour, and not enforced by any 
human sanction except public opinion, for if the stranger 
is wronged he has no kinsmen to fight for him. And for 
this very reason it is a sacred obligation, which among the 
old Arabs was often confirmed by oath at a sanctuary, and 
could not be renounced except by a formal act at the same 
holy place,> so that the god himself became the protector 
of the stranger’s cause. The protected stranger did not 
necessarily give up his old worship any more than he gave 
up his old kindred, and in the earliest times it is not to be 
supposed that he was admitted to full communion in the 
religion of his protectors, for religion went with political 
rights. But it was natural that he should acknowledge in 
some degree the god of the land in which he lived, and 
indeed, since the stated exercises of religion were confined 


1 See further, Kinship, pp. 48-52. 

2 This is the space prescribed by the traditions of the prophet, Hariri (De 
Sacy’s 2nd ed. p. 177; cf. Sharishi, i. 242). A viaticum sufficient for « 
day’s journey should be added ; all beyond this is not duty but alms, 

3 Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahdbys, i. 336. 

* Burckhardt, op. cit. i. 174. 

6 Ibn Hisham, p. 243 sgq.; Kinship, p. 51. 


| 
} 
7 
| 


LECT. I1. CLIENT OF HIS GOD vari 


to certain fixed sanctuaries, the man who was far from his 
old home was also far from his own god, and sooner or 
later could hardly fail to become a dependent adherent of 
the cult of his patrons, though not with rights equal to 
theirs. Sometimes, indeed, the god was the direct patron 
of the gér,a thing easily understood when we consider 
that a common motive for seeking foreign protection was 
the fear of the avenger of blood, and that there was a 
right of asylum at sanctuaries. From a Pheenician inscrip- 
tion found near Larnaca, which gives the monthly accounts 
of a temple, we learn that the gérim formed a distinct 
class in the personnel of the sanctuary, and received certain 
allowances, just as we know from Ezek. xliv. that much 
of the service of the first temple was done by uncircum- 
cised foreigners. This notion of the temple-client, the man 
who lives in the precincts of the sanctuary under the 
special protection of the god, is used in a figurative sense 
in Ps, xv., “Who shall sojourn (ydgir, ue. live as a gér) 
in Thy tabernacle?” and similarly the Arabs give the 
title of jar allah to one who resides in Mecca beside the 
Caaba. 

The importance of this occasional reception of strangers 
was not great so long as the old national divisions remained 
untouched, and the proportion of foreigners in any com- 
munity was small. But the case became very different 
when the boundaries of nations were changed by the 
migration of tribes, or by the wholesale deportations that 
were part of the policy of the Assyrians towards conquered 
countries where their arms had met with strenuous resist- 
ance. In such circumstances it was natural for the new- 
comers to seek admission to the sanctuaries of the ‘“ god of 
the land,’ which they were able to do by presenting 
themselves as his clients. In such a case the clients of 

1 CIS. No. 86. 22 Kings xvii. 26. 


78 THE WORSHIPPER AS LECT. IL 


the god were not necessarily in a position of political 
dependence on his old worshippers, and the religious sense 
of the term gér became detached from the idea of social 
inferiority. But the relation of the new worshippers to 
the god was no longer the same as on the old purely 
national system. It was more dependent and less per- 


manent; it was constituted, not by nature and inherited 


privilege, but by submission on the worshipper’s side and 
free bounty on the side of the god; and in every way it 
tended to make the relation between man and god more 
distant, to make men fear the god more and throw more 
servility into their homage, while at the same time the 
higher feelings of devotion were quickened by the thought 
that the protection and favour of the god was a thing of 
free grace and not of national right. How important this 
change was may be judged from the Old Testament, where 
the idea that the Israelites are Jehovah’s clients, sojourning 
in a land where they have no rights of their own, but are 
absolutely dependent on His bounty, is one of the most 
characteristic notes of the new and more timid type of 
piety that distinguishes post-exilic Judaism from the 
religion of Old Israel.! In the old national religions a 
man felt sure of his standing with the national god, unless 
he forfeited it by a distinct breach of social law; but the 
client is accepted, so to speak, on his good behaviour, an 
idea which precisely accords with the anxious legality of 
Judaism after the captivity. 

In Judaism the spirit of legality was allied with genuine 
moral earnestness, as we see in the noble description of the 
character that befits Jehovah’s gér drawn in Ps. xv.; but 
among the heathen Semites we find the same spirit of 
legalism, the same timid uncertainty as to a man’s standing 


1Tev. xxv. 23; Ps. xxxix. 12 [Heb, 13]; Ps, exix. 19; 1 Chron, 
xxix. 15. 


q 
| 
. 


~~ - 2. 


=>) = 


ee es 


LECT. Il. CLIENT OF HIS GOD 79 
with the god whose protection he seeks, while the con- 
ception of what is pleasing to the deity has not attained 
the same ethical elevation. The extent to which, in the 
disintegration of the old nationalities of the East and 
the constant movements of population due to political 
disturbance, men’s religion detached itself from their local 
and national connections, is seen by the prevalence of names 
in which a man is designated the client of the god. In 
Pheenician inscriptions we find a whole series of men’s 
names compounded with Gér,—Germelkarth, Gerastart, and 
so forth,—and the same type recurs among the Arabs of 
Syria in the name Gairelos or Gerelos, “client of El.”? In 
Arabia proper, where the relation of protector and protected 
had a great development, and whole clans were wont to 
attach themselves as dependants to a more powerful tribe, 
the conception of god and worshipper as patron and client 
appears to have been specially predominant, not merely 
because dependent clans took up the religion of the patrons 
with whom they took refuge, but because of the frequent 
shiftings of the tribes. Wellhausen has noted that the 
hereditary priesthoods of Arabian sanctuaries were often in 
the hands of families that did not belong to the tribe of 
the worshippers, but apparently were descended from older 
inhabitants ;? and in such cases the modern worshippers 
were really only clients of a foreign god. So, in fact, at 
the great Saban pilgrimage shrine of Riyam, the god 
Ta lab is adored as “ patron,” and his worshippers are called 
his clients. To the same conception may be assigned the 
proper name Salm, “submission,” shortened from such 
theophorous forms as the Palmyrene Salm al-Lat, “sub- 


1 See Noldeke, Sitzwngsb. Berl. Ak. 1880, p. 765. 

2 Wellhausen, Heidenthum, p. 131; cf. p. 215. 

8 Mordtmann u. Miiller, Sab. Denkm. p. 22, No. 5, 1. 2 sq. (Wom 'w), L 
8 sq. (MIDIN) ete. Cf. No. 13, 1. 12, ADIN, the clients of the goddess 
Shams, 


* 


80 THE WORSHIPPER AS LECT. IL 
mission to Lat,”! and corresponding to the religious use 
of the verb zstalama, “he made his peace,” to designate the 
ceremony of kissing, stroking, or embracing the sacred 
stone at the Caaba;? and perhaps also the numerous 
names compounded with taim, which, if we may judge 
by the profane use of the word motayyam, applied to a 
deeply attached lover, seems to have some such sense as 
“devotee.” * But above all, the prevalence of religion 
based on clientship and voluntary homage is seen in the 
growth of the practice of pilgrimage to distant shrines, 
which is so prominent a feature in later Semitic heathenism. 
Almost all Arabia met at Mecca, and the shrine at Hiera- 
polis drew visitors from the whole Semitic world. These 
pilgrims were the guests of the god, and were received 
as such by the inhabitants of the holy places. They 
approached the god as strangers, not with the old joyous 
confidence of national worship, but with atoning ceremonies 
and rites of self-mortification, and their acts of worship 
were carefully prescribed for them by qualified instructors,* 
the prototypes of the modern Meccan Motawwif. The 


1 De Vogiié, No. 54. 

4 Ibn Doraid, Kit. al-ishticdc, p. 22. Thesame idea of a religion accepted 
by voluntary submission is expressed in the name Islam. We shall see later 
that much the same idea underlies the designation of the Christian religion 
as a ‘‘mystery.” 

8 Taim is generally taken to be a mere synonym of ‘Abd; but in Arabic 
the word is quite obsolete, except as an element in old theophorous names, 
and the other forms derived from the root give no clear insight into its 
original sense. In the dialect of the Sinaitic inscriptions, where proper 
names like Taimallihi, Taimdhiishara are common, faim seems to occur as 
a common noun in Euting, Sinaitische Inschriften, No. 481, where the editor 
renders 7'N by ‘‘sein Knecht.” But the Arabic uses of the root seem to 
point to a somewhat more special sense, perhaps ‘‘captive,” which might 
be figuratively applied to a devotee, or, when the name compounded with 
toim is a clan-name, as is the usual Arabian case, to a subject tribe that 
had adopted the worship of their conquerors. On the other hand, tama 
is a sheep not sent forth to pasture, but kept at the homestead to be milked, 
and on this analogy faim may mean domestic. 

‘Lucian, De Dea Syria, lvi. 


LECT, I. CLIENT OF HIS GOD 81 
progress of heathenism towards universalism, as it is dis- 
played in these usages, seemed only to widen the gulf 
between the deity and man, to destroy the naive trustful- 
ness of the old religion without substituting a better way 
for man to be at one with his god, to weaken the moral ideas 
of nationality without bringing in a higher morality of uni- 
versal obligation, to transform the divine kingship into a 
mere court pageant of priestly ceremonies without perman- 
ent influence on the order of society and daily life. The 
Hebrew ideal of a divine kingship that must one day draw | 
all men to do it homage offered better things than these, 
not in virtue of any feature that it possessed in common with 
the Semitic religions as a whole, but solely through the 
unique conception of Jehovah as a God whose love for His 
people was conditioned by a law of absolute righteousness. 
In other nations individual thinkers rose to lofty con- 
ceptions of a supreme deity, but in Israel, and in Israel 
alone, these conceptions were incorporated in the accepted 
worship of the national god. And so of all the gods of 
the nations Jehovah alone was fitted to become the God of 
the whole earth. 


At the end of these remarks on the relations of the 
gods to their worshippers, it may not be amiss to advert to 
an objection to the whole course of our investigation that 
will possibly occur to some readers. Most enquirers into 
Semitic religion have made it their first business to discuss 
the nature of the gods, and with this view have sought to 
determine a particular class of natural phenomena or moral 
actions over which each deity presides. Persons trained in 
this school may remark on reading the foregoing pages that 


they are not a whit the better for knowing that the gods 
6 


82 THE POWER LECT, I, 
were conceived as parents kings or patrons, since these 
relationships do not help us to understand what the gods 
could do for their worshippers. The ancients prayed to 
their gods for rain and fruitful seasons, for children, for 
health and long life, for the multiplication of their flocks 
and herds, and for many other things that no child asked 
from his father, no subject from his king. Hence it may 
be argued that fathership and kingship in religion are mere 
forms of words; the essence of the thing is to know why 
the gods were deemed able to do for their worshippers 
things that kings and fathers cannot do. So far as this 
objection is a general challenge to the method of the 
present volume, I must leave the sequel to answer it; but 
the point that the gods did for their worshippers things 
that human fathers kings and patrons were not expected 
to do, demands and may receive some elucidation at the 
present point. And first I will remark that the help of 
the gods was sought in all matters, without distinction, 
that were objects of desire and could not certainly be 
attained by the worshipper’s unaided efforts. Further, it 
appears that help in all these matters was sought by the 
worshipper from whatever god he had a right to appeal 
to. If a Semitic worshipper was sick he called upon his 
national or tribal god, and the same god was addressed 
if he desired rain or victory over enemies. The power of 
a god was not conceived as unlimited, but it was very 
great, and applied to all sorts of things that men could 
desire. So far as primitive Semitic heathenism is con- 
cerned, it is quite a mistake to suppose that a god to whom 
men prayed for rain was necessarily a god of clouds, while 
another deity was the god of flocks, and the proper recipient 
of prayers for increase in the sheepfold. The gods had 
their physical limitations, as we shall see in the next 
lecture, but not in the sense that each deity presided over 


LECT. II. OF THE GODS 83 


a distinct department of nature; that is a conception much 
too abstract for the primitive mind, and proper to an 
advanced stage of polytheism which most of the Semitic 
nations never fully reached. In early heathenism the 
really vital question is not what a god has power to do, 
but whether I can get him to do it for me, and this 
depends on the relation in which he stands to me. If I 
have a god who is my king, I ask him for things that I do 
not ask from a human chief, simply because he is able to do 
them, and as his subject I have a claim to his help in all 
matters where my welfare belongs to the welfare of the 
state over which he presides. And in fact it is by no 
means true that in asking the god for rain the Semites went 
quite beyond what could be asked of a human king; for, 
strange as it may seem to us, almost all primitive peoples 
believe that rain-making is an art to which men can 
attain, and some of them expect their kings to exercise 
it! To peoples in this stage of development a rainmaker 
is not a cosmical power, but merely a person, human or 
divine, possessed of a certain art or charm. To say that 
a god who can make rain is necessarily an elemental power 
associated with the clouds and the sky, is as absurd as to 
say that Hera was the goddess of Love when she borrowed 
the girdle of Aphrodite. This is a very obvious remark, 
but it knocks on the head a great deal that has been 
- written about Semitic religion. 


1 Frazer, J'he Golden Bough, i. 247 sqq., 342 sqq., 396, 416, gives sufficient 
proofs of this. See below, p. 231. 


LECTURE IT 


THE RELATIONS OF THE GODS TO NATURAL THINGS— 
HOLY PLACES——THE JINN 


In the last lecture I endeavoured to sketch in broad out- 
line the general features of the religious institutions of the 
Semites in so far as they rest on the idea that gods and 
men, or rather the god and his own proper worshippers, 
make up a single community, and that the place of the 
god in the community is interpreted on the analogy of 
human relationships. We are now to follow out this 
point of view through the details of sacred rite and 
observance, and to consider how the various acts and 
offices of religion stand related to the place assigned to the 
deity in the community of his worshippers. But as soon 
as we begin to enter on these details, we find it necessary 
to take account of a new series of relations connecting man 
on the one hand, and his god on the other, with physical 
nature and material objects. All acts of ancient worship 
have a material embodiment, which is not left to the choice 
of the worshipper but is limited by fixed rules. They must 
be performed at certain places and at certain times, with 
the aid of certain material appliances and according to 
certain mechanical forms. These rules import that the 
intercourse between the deity and his worshippers is 


subject to physical conditions of a definite kind, and this 
84 


LECT, IIL THE GODS AND NATURE 85 


again implies that the relations between gods and men are 
not independent of the material environment. The relations 
of a man to his fellow-men are limited by physical con- 
ditions, because man, on the side of his bodily organism, is 
himself a part of the material universe; and when we find 
that the relations of a man to his god are limited in the 
same way, we are led to conclude that the gods too are in 
some sense conceived to be a part of the natural universe, 
and that this is the reason why men can hold converse 
with them only by the aid of certain material things. It 
is true that in some of the higher forms of antique religion 
the material restrictions imposed on the legitimate inter- 
course between gods and men were conceived to be not 
natural but positive, that is they were not held to be 
dependent on the nature of the gods, but were looked 
upon as arbitrary rules laid down by the free will of the 
deity. But in the ordinary forms of heathenism it appears 
quite plainly that the gods themselves are not exempt from 
the general limitations of physical existence; indeed, we 
have already seen that where the relation of the deity to 
his worshippers is conceived as a relation of kinship, the 
kinship is taken to have a physical as well as a moral 
sense, so that the worshipped and the worshippers are 
parts not only of one social community but of one physical 
unity of life. 

It is important that we should realise to ourselves with 
some definiteness the primitive view of the universe in 
which this conception arose, and in which it has its 
natural place. It dates from a time when men had not 
learned to draw sharp distinctions between the nature of 
one thing and another. Savages, we know, are not only 
incapable of separating in thought between phenomenal 
and noumenal existence, but habitually ignore the dis- 
tinctions, which to us seem obvious, between organic and 


86 THE GODS AND LECT. OL 


inorganic nature, or within the former region between 
animals and plants. Arguing altogether by analogy, and 
concluding from the known to the unknown with the 
freedom of men who do not know the difference between 
the imagination and the reason, they ascribe to all material 


objects a life analogous to that which their own self-con- 


sciousness reveals to them. They see that men are liker 
to one another than beasts are to men, that men are liker 
to beasts than they are to plants, and to plants than they 
are to stones; but all things appear to them to live, and 
the more incomprehensible any form of life seems to them 
the more wonderful and worthy of reverence do they take 
it to be. Now this attitude of savage man to the natural 
things by which he is surrounded is the very attitude attested 
to us for ancient times by some of the most salient features 
of antique religion. Among races which have attained to 
a certain degree of culture, the predominant conception of 
the gods is anthropomorphic; that is, they are supposed on 
the whole to resemble men and act like men, and the 
artistic imagination, whether in poetry or in sculpture and 
painting, draws them after the similitude of man. But at 
the same time the list of deities includes a variety of 
natural objects of all kinds, the sun moon and stars, the 
heavens and the earth, animals and trees, or even sacred 
stones. And all these gods, without distinction of their 
several natures, are conceived as entering into the same 
kind of relation to man, are approached in ritual of the 
same type, and excite the same kind of hopes and fears in 
the breasts of their worshippers. It is of course easy to 
say that the gods were not identified with these natural 
objects, that they were only supposed to inhabit them; but 
for our present purpose this distinction is not valid. A 
certain crude distinction between soul and body, combined 
with the idea that the soul may act where the body is not, 


pers ee 


LECT I. NATURAL THINGS. 87 


is suggested to the most savage races by familiar psychical 
phenomena, particularly by those of dreams; and the un- 
bounded use of analogy characteristic of pre-scientific 
thought extends this conception to all parts of nature 
which becomes to the savage mind full of spiritual forces, 
mcre or less detached in their movements and action from 
the material objects to which they are supposed properly 
to belong. But the detachment of the invisible life from 
its visible embodiment is never complete. A man after 
all is not a ghost or phantom, a life or soul without a 
body, but a body with its life, and in like manner the 
unseen life that inhabits the plant, tree, or sacred stone 
makes the sacred object itself be conceived as a living 
being. And in ritual the sacred object was spoken of 
and treated as the god himself; it was not merely his 
symbol but his embodiment, the permanent centre of his 
activity in the same sense in which the human body is the 
permanent centre of man’s activity. In short, the whole 
conception belongs in its origin to a stage of thought in 
which there was no more difficulty in ascribing living 
powers and personality to a stone, tree, or animal, than 
to a being of human or superhuman build. 

The same lack of any sharp distinction between the 
nature of different kinds of visible beings appears in the 
oldest myths, in which all kinds of objects, animate and 
inanimate, organic and inorganic, appear as cognate with 
one another, with men, and with the gods. The kinship 
between gods and men which we have already discussed is 
only one part of a larger kinship which embraces the 
lower creation. In the Babylonian legend beasts as well 
as man are formed of earth mingled with the life-blood of 
a god; in Greece the stories of the descent of men from 
gods stand side by side with ancient legends of men sprung 
from trees or rocks, or of races whose mother was a tree 


88 GODS MEN AND LECT, III, 


and their father a god! Similar myths, connecting both 
men and gods with animals plants and rocks, are found all 
over the world, and were not lacking among the Semites. 
To this day the legend of the country explains the name 
of the Beni Sokhr tribe by making them the offspring of 
the sandstone rocks about Madain Salih To the same 
stage of thought belong the stories of transformations of 
men into animals, which are not infrequent in Arabian 
legend. Mohammed would not eat lizards because he 
fancied them to be the offspring of a metamorphosed 
clan of Israelites? | Macrizi relates of the Seiar in 
Hadramaut that in time of drought part of the tribe 
change themselves into ravening were-wolves. They have 
a magical means of assuming and again casting off the 
wolf shape.* Other Hadramites changed themselves into 
vultures or kites. In the Sinai Peninsula the hyrax and 
the panther are believed to have been originally men.® 
Among the northern Semites transformation myths are 
not uncommon, though they have generally been preserved 
to us only in Greek forms. The pregnant mother of 
Adonis was changed into a myrrh tree, and in the tenth 
month the tree burst open and the infant god came forth.’ 
The metamorphosis of Derceto into a fish was related both 
at Ascalon and at Bambyce, and so forth. In the same 
spirit is conceived the Assyrian myth which includes 
the lion, the eagle, and the war-horse among the lovers of 

1 Odyssey, xvili. 163; Preller-Robert, i. 79 sq. 

2 Doughty, Travels in Arabia, i. 17; see Ibn Doraid, p. 329, 1. 20. 
Conversely, many stones and rocks in Arabia were believed to be transformed 
men, but especially women. ODozy, Israeliten te Mekka, p. 201, gives 
examples. See also Yaciut, i. 123. 

8 Damiri, ii. 87; cf. Doughty, i. 326. <A similar jadith about the 
mouse, Damiri, ii. 218. 

4 De valle Hadhramaut (Bonn 1866), p. 19 sq. 

5 Ibid. p. 20. See also Ibn Mojawir in Sprenger, Post-rowten, p. 142. 


6 See Kinship, p. 238 sq., where I give other evidences on the point. 
7 Apollodorys, iii. 14. 8; Servius on 4/n v. 72. 


LECT, III. NATURAL THINGS 89 


Ishtar, while in the region of plastic art the absence of 
any sharp line of distinction between gods and men on the 
one hand and the lower creation on the other is displayed 
in the predilection for fantastic monsters, half human half 
bestial, which began with the oldest Chaldean engraved 
cylinders, gave Phcenicia its cherubim griffins and sphinxes,} 
and continued to characterise the sacred art of the Baby- 
lonians down to the time of Berosus.2 Of course most of 
these things can be explained away as allegories, and are 
so explained to this day by persons who shut their eyes to 
the obvious difference between primitive thought, which 
treats all nature as a kindred unity because it has not yet 
differentiated things into their kinds, and modern monistic 
philosophy, in which the universe of things, after having 
been realised in its multiplicity of kinds, is again brought 
into unity by a metaphysical synthesis. But by what 
process of allegory can we explain away the belief in were- 
wolves? When the same person is believed to be now a 
man and now a wolf, the difference which we recognise 
between a man and a wild beast is certainly not yet 
perceived. And such a belief as this cannot be a mere 
isolated extravagance of the fancy; it points to a view of 
nature as a whole which is, in fact, the ordinary view of 
savages in all parts of the world, and everywhere produces 
just such a confusion between the several orders of natural 
and supernatural beings as we find to have existed among 
the early Semites. 

The influence of these ideas on early systems of 
religion may be considered under two aspects: (1) On the 
one hand, the range of the supernatural is so wide that no 

1 See Menant, Glyptique Orientale, vol. i. 
2 Berosus (fr. Hist. Gr. ii. 497) refers to the images at the temple of Bel 
which preserved the forms of the strange monsters that lived in the time of 


chaos. But the peculiar prevalence of such figures on the oldest gems shows 
that the chaos in question is only the chaotic imagination of early man, 


90 PHYSICAL AFFINITIES LECT, Il. 


antique religion attempts to deal with all its manifesta- 
tions. The simplest proof of this is that magic and 
sorcery, though they lay outside of religion and were 
forbidden arts in all the civilised states of antiquity, were 
yet never regarded as mere imposture. It was not denied 
that there were supernatural agencies at work in the world 
of which the public religion took no account. Religion 
dealt only with the gods, ae. with a definite circle of great 
supernatural powers whose relations to man were estab- 
lished on a regular friendly basis and maintained by stated 
rites and fixed institutions. Beyond the circle of gods 
there lay a vast and undetermined mass of minor super- 
natural agencies, some of which were half-incorporated in 
religion under the name of demi-gods, while others were 
altogether ignored except in private popular superstition, 
or by those who professed the art of constraining demoniac 
powers to do them service and obey their commands. 
(2) On the other hand, the gods proper were not sharply 
marked off, as regards their nature, from the lower orders of 
demoniac beings, or even from such physical objects as 
were believed to possess demoniac attributes. Their 
distinctive mark lay in their relations with man, or, more 
exactly, with a definite circle of men, their habitual wor- 
shippers. As these relations were known and stable, they 
gave rise to an orderly and fixed series of religious institu- 
tions. But the forms of religious service were not deter- 
mined merely by the fact that the god was considered in 
one case as the father, in another as the king, in yet 
another as the patron of his worshippers. In determining 
how the god was to be approached, and how his help could 
be most fully realised, it was necessary to take account of 
the fact that he was not an omnipotent and omnipresent 
being standing wholly outside of nature, but was himself 
linked to the physical werld by a series of affinities con- 


<i 


LECT Il. OF THE GODS 91 


necting him not merely with man but with beasts trees 
and inanimate things. In antique religion gods as well as 
men have a physical environment, on and through which 
they act, and by which their activity is conditioned. 

The influence of this idea on ancient religion is very 
far-reaching and often difficult to analyse. But there is 
one aspect of it that is both easily grasped and of funda- 
mental importance; I mean the connection of particular 
gods with particular places. The most general term to 
express the relation of natural things to the gods which 
our language affords is the word “holy”; thus when we 
speak of holy places, holy things, holy persons, holy times, 
we imply that the places things persons and times stand 
in some special relation to the godhead or to its manifesta- 
tion. But the word “ holy” has had a long and complicated 
history, and has various shades of meaning according to the 
connection in which it is used. It is not possible, by mere 
analysis of the modern use of the word, to arrive at a 
single definite conception of the meaning of holiness; nor 
is it possible to fix on any one of the modern aspects of 
the conception, and say that it represents the fundamental 
idea from which all other modifications of the idea can be 
deduced. The primitive conception of holiness, to which 
the modern variations of the idea must be traced back, 
belonged to a habit of thought with which we have lost 
touch, and we cannot hope to understand it by the aid of 
logical discussion, but only by studying it on its own 
ground as it is exhibited in the actual working of early 
religion. It would be idle, therefore, at this stage to 
attempt any general definition, or to seek for a compre- 
hensive formula covering all the relations of the gods to 
natural things. The problem must be attacked in detail 
and for many reasons the most suitable point of attack 
will be found in the connection that ancient religion con- 


92 THE LOCAL RELATIONS LECT. IIL 
ceived to exist between particular deities and particular 
“holy” places. This topic is of fundamental importance, 
because all complete acts of ancient worship were neces- 
sarily performed at a holy place, and thus the local con- 
nections of the gods are involved, explicitly or implicitly, in 
every function of religion. 

The local relations of the gods may be considered 
under two heads. In the first place the activity power 
and dominion of the gods were conceived as bounded 
by certain local limits, and in the second place they were 
conceived as having their residences and homes at certain 
fixed sanctuaries. These two conceptions are not of course 
independent, for generally speaking the region of divine 
authority and influence surrounds the sanctuary which is 
the god’s principal seat; but for convenience of exposition 
we shall look first at the god’s land and then at his 
sanctuary or dwelling-place. 

Broadly speaking, the land of a god corresponds with 
the land of his worshippers; Canaan is Jehovah’s land as 
Israel is Jehovah’s people. In like manner the land of 
Assyria (Asshur) has its name from the god Asshur,? and 
in general the deities of the heathen are called indifferently 
the gods of the nations and the gods of the lands. Our 
natural impulse is to connect these expressions with the 
divine kingship, which in modern states of feudal origin 
is a sovereignty over land as well as men. But the older 
Semitic kingdoms were not feudal, and before the captivity 
we shall hardly find an example of a Semitic sovereign 
being called king of a land* In fact the relations of 


1 Hos. ix. 3; cf. Reland, Palwxstina, vol. i. p. 16 sqq. 

2 Schrader, KAT. 3rd ed. p. 351; cf. Micah v. 6 (Heb. 5), where the 
“land of Asshur ” stands in parallelism with “‘ land of Nimrod.” Nimrod 
is a god, see his article in Enc. Brit., 9th ed., and Wellhausen, Hexateuch 
(2nd ed. 1889), p. 308 sqq. 

32 Kings xviii. 33 sqq. 

4 The Hebrews say “king of Asshur” (Assyria), Edom, Aram (Syria), etc., 


Ute. oe ula 


LECT, III. OF THE GODS 93 
a god to his land were not merely political, or dependent 
on his relation to the inhabitants. The Arameans and 
Babylonians whom the king of Assyria planted in northern 
Israel brought their own gods with them, but when they 
were attacked by lions they felt that they must call in 
the aid of “the god of the land,’ who, we must infer, 
had in his own region power over beasts as well as men.} 
Similarly the Aramzans of Damascus, after their defeat 
in the hill-country of Samaria, argue that the gods of 
Israel are gods of the hills and will have no power in 
the plains; the power of the gods has physical and 
local limitations. So too the conception that a god 
cannot be worshipped outside of his own land, which 
we find applied even to the worship of Jehovah, does 
not simply mean that there can be no worship of a 
god where he has no sanctuary, but that the land of 
a strange god is not a fit place to erect a sanctuary. 
In the language of the Old Testament foreign countries 
are unclean,® so that Naaman, when he desires to worship 
the God of Israel at Damascus, has to beg for two mules’ 
burden of the soil of Canaan, to make a sort of enclave 
of Jehovah’s land in his Aramzan dwelling-place. 

In Semitic religion the relation of the gods to particular 
places which are special seats of their power is usually 
expressed by the title Baal (pl. Baalim, fem. Baalath). 
but these are names of nations, the countries being properly the ‘‘ land of 
Asshur,” etc. The local designation of a king is taken from his capital, or 
royal seat. Thus the king of Israel is king of Samaria (1 Kings xxi. 1), 
Sihon, king of the Amorites, is king of Heshbon (Deut. iii, 6). Hiram, 
whom the Bible calls king of Tyre, appears on the oldest of Pheenician 
inscriptions (CZS. No. 5) as king of the Sidonians, z.e. the Pheenicians (ef. 
1 Kings xvi. 31), Nebuchadrezzar is king of Babylon, and so forth. The 
only exception to this rule in old Hebrew is, I think, Og, king of Bashan 
(Deut. i. 4; 1 Kings iv. 19), who is a mythical figure, presumably an old 
god of the region. 


12 Kings xvii. 24 sqq. 21 Sam. xxvi. 19; Hos. ix. 4. 
3 Amos vii. 17; Josh. xxii. 19. 


94 THE GOD AS LECT. IM 


As applied to men baal means the master of a house, the 
owner of a field cattle or the like; or in the plural the 
baalim of a city are its freeholders and full citizens! Ina 
secondary sense, in which alone the word is ordinarily used 
in Arabic, baal means husband; but it is not used of the 
relation of a master to his slave, or of a superior to his 
inferior, and it is incorrect to regard it, when employed as 
a divine title, as a mere synonym of the titles implying 
lordship over men which came before us in the last lecture. 
When a god is simply called “the Baal,” the meaning is 
not “the lord of the worshipper” but the possessor of some 
place or district, and each of the multitude of local Baalim 
is distinguished by adding the name of his own place.’ 
Melcarth is the Baal of Tyre, Astarte the Baalath of 
Byblus;* there was a Baal of Lebanon, of Mount 
Hermon,> of Mount Peor, and so forth. In Southern 
Arabia Baal constantly occurs in similar local connections, 
e.g. Dhi Samawi is the Baal of the district Bacir, ‘Athtar 
the Baal of Gumdan, and the sun-goddess the Baalath 
of several places or regions.® 


1 So often in the Old Testament, and also in Phenician. Baalath is used 
of a female citizen (CZS. No. 120). 

2 Cf, Stade in ZA7TW. 1886, p. 303. 

3 COIS. Nos. 1, 122. 4 CJS. No. 5. 

5 See Judg. iii. 3, where this mountain is called the mountain of the Baal 
of Hermon. Hermon properly means a sacred place. In the Old Testament 
place-names like Baal-peor, Baal-meon are shortened from Beth Baal Peor, 
‘* house or sanctuary of the Baal of Mount Peor,” etc. 

6 Hence we read in the Himyaritic inscriptions of sun-goddesses in the 
plural (e.g. }ONDOWN, CLS. pt. iv. No. 46), as in Canaan we have a plurality 
of local Baalim. Special forms of Baal occur which are defined not by the 
name of a place or region but in some other way, ¢.g. by the name of a sacred 
object, as Baal-tamar, ‘‘lord of the palm-tree,” preserved to us only in the 
name of a town, Judg. xx. 33. So too Baal-hamman, on the Carthaginian 
Tanith inscriptions, may be primarily “lord of the sun-pillar”’; yet compare 
won Sy, “the divinity of (the place) Hammon” (O78. No. 8, and the inscr. 
of Ma‘stb); see G. Hoffmann in the Abhandlungen of the Gottingen Academy, 
vol. xxxvi. (4 May 1889). Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, is ‘‘owner of flies,” 
rather than Béwa Muvia, the fly-god. In one or two cases the title of Baa) 


% 
¥ 
; 


LECT, III. BAAL OF HIS LAND 95 


As the heathen gods are never conceived as ubiquitous 
and can act only where they or their ministers are present, 
the sphere of their permanent authority and influence is 
naturally regarded as their residence. It will be observed 
that the local titles which I have cited are generally derived 
either from towns where the god had a temple, or (as the 
Semites say) a house, or else from mountains, which are 
constantly conceived as the dwelling-places of deities. The 
notion of personal property in land is a thing that grows 
up gradually in human society, and is first applied to a 
man’s homestead. Pasture land is common property, but 
a man acquires rights in the soil by building a house, or by 
“quickening” a waste place, ue. bringing it under cultiva- 


seems to be prefixed to the name of a god; thus we have Baal-zephon as a 
place-name on the frontiers of Egypt, and also a god jbY (CIS. Nos. 108, 
265). Similarly the second element in Baal-gad, a town at the foot of 
Mount Hermon, is the name of an ancient Semitic god. The grammatical] 
explanation of these forms is not clear to me. Another peculiar form is 
Baal-berith at Shechem, which in ordinary Hebrew simply means ‘‘ possessor 
of covenant,” t.e. ‘‘covenant ally,” but may here signify the Baal who 
presides over covenants, or rather over the special covenant by which the 
neighbouring Israelites were bound to the Canaanite inhabitants of the city. 
Peculiar also is the more modern Baal-marcod, xoipavos xwuay (near Bairit), 
known from inscriptions (Wadd. Nos. 1855, 1856; Ganneau, Rec. d’ Arch. Or. 
i. 95, 103). The Semitic form is supposed to be “3p 1d by, “lord of 
dancing,” 7.e. he to whom dancing is due as an act of homage ; cf. for the 
construction, Prov. iii. 27. In later times Baal or Bel became a proper 
name, especially in connection with the cult of the Babylonian Bel, and 
entered into compounds of a new kind like the Aglibol and Malakhbel of 
Palmyra. Baal Shamaim, ‘‘the lord of heaven,” belongs to the class of 
titles taken from the region of nature in which the god dwells or has sway. 
xpi by2 (CIS. No. 41) and movinn nby (ibid. No. 177) are of doubtful 
interpretation. In the Panamu inscription of Zenjirli, 1. 22, M‘3 bys can 
hardly mean ‘‘ patron of the royal family,” as Sachau takes it, but rather 
designates RKB-E] as the local Baal of the sanctuary, or perhaps of the 
royal city. On the whole there is nothing in these peculiar forms to shake 
the general conclusion that Baal is primarily the title of a god as inhabitant 
or owner of a place. 

1 Common, that is, to a tribe, for the tribes are very jealous of encroach- 
ments on their pastures. But, as we have here to do with the personal 
rights of the Baal within his own community, the question of intertribal 
rights does not come in. 


96 THE GOD AS LECT. III, 


tion. Originally, that is, private rights over land are a 
mere consequence of rights over what is produced by 
private labour upon the land! The ideas of building and 
cultivation are closely connected—the Arabic ‘amara, like 
the German bauwen, covers both—and the word for house or 
homestead is extended to include the dependent fields or 
territory. Thus in Syriac “the house of Antioch” is the 
territory dependent on the town, and in the Old Testament 
the land of Canaan is called not only Jehovah’s land but 
his house.” If the relation of the Baal to his district is to 
be judged on these analogies, the land is his, first because 
he inhabits it, and then because he “quickens” it, and 
makes it productive. 

That this is the true account of the relations of the 
name Baal appears from what Hosea tells us of the 
religious conceptions of his idolatrous contemporaries, 
whose nominal Jehovah worship was merged in the 
numerous local cults of the Canaanite Baalim. To the 
Baalim they ascribed all the natural gifts of the land, 
the corn the wine and the oil, the wool and the flax, 
the vines and fig-trees,” and we shall see by and by 
that the whole ritual of feasts and sacrifices was imbued 
with this conception. We can, however, go a step further, 
and trace the idea to an earlier form, by the aid of a 
fragment of old heathen phraseology which has survived 
in the language of Jewish and Arabian agriculture. In 
the system of Mohammedan taxation land irrigated by the 
water-wheel or other laborious methods pays five per cent. 
of its produce in the name of charity-tax, whereas land 


1The law of Islam is that land which has never been cultivated or 
occupied by houses becomes private property by being ‘‘ quickened’”’ (d71- 
thya). See Nawawi, Minha, ed. Van den Berg, ii. 171. This is in accord. 
ance with pre-Islamic custom. Cf. Wellhausen, Heidenthwm, p. 108. 

? Hos. viii. 1, ix. 15, compared with ix. 3, 

* Hos, ii, 8 sqq. 


a 
4 
q 
i 
4 
vq 


— owe eee a 


LECT. III. BAAL OF HIS LAND 97 


that does not require laborious irrigation pays a full tithe. 
The latter, according to Arabian jurists, is of various kinds, 
which are designated by special names; but all these are 
summed up in the general expression “what the sky 
waters and what the Ba‘l waters.” Similarly the Mishna 
and Talmud draw a distinction between land artificially 
irrigated and land naturally moist, calling the latter the 
“house of Baal” or “field of the house of Baal.” It 
must be remembered that in the East the success of 
agriculture depends more on the supply of water than on 
anything else, and the “quickening of dead ground” (thya 
al-mawat), which, as we have seen, creates ownership, has 
reference mainly to irrigation! Accordingly what the 
husbandman irrigates is his own property, but what is 
naturally watered he regards as irrigated by a god and 
as the field or property of this god, who is thus looked 
upon as the Baal or owner of the spot. 

It has generally been assumed that Baal’s land, in the 
sense in which it is opposed to irrigated fields, means land 
watered by the rains of heaven, “the waters of the sky” 
as the Arabs call them, and from this again it has been 
inferred that the Baal who gives his name to land naturally 
moist and fertile is the god of the sky (Baal-shamaim), 
who plays so great a part in later Semitic religion, and is 
identified by Philo Byblius with the sun. But, strictly 
regarded, this view, which is natural in our climate and 
with our meteorological notions, appears to be inconsistent 
with the conditions of vegetable growth in most parts of 
the Semitic lands, where the rainfall is precarious or 
confined to certain seasons, so that the face of the earth 
is bare and lifeless for the greater part of the year except 
where it is kept fresh by irrigation or by the natural 

1See, for example, Abii Yiisuf Ya'cib, Kitab al-Kharaj, Cairo, A.H. 
1302, p. 37. ‘ 
7 


98 ORIGINAL SENSE LECT. Il. 
percolation of underground water. To us, of course, it 
is plain that all fertility is ultimately due to the rains 
which feed the springs and watery bottoms, as well as 
the broad corn-fields; but this is a knowledge beyond the 
science of the oldest Semites;! while on the other hand 
the distinction between favoured spots that are always 
green and fruitful and the less favoured fields that are 
useless during the rainless season, is alike obvious and 
essential to the most primitive systems of husbandry. 

In Arabia the rainfall is all-important for pasture, 
but except in the far south, which comes within the skirts 
of the monsoon region, it is too irregular to form a basis 
for agriculture. An occasional crop of gourds or melons 
may be raised in certain places after copious showers ; and 
on low-lying plains, where the rain sinks into a heavy soil 
and cannot flow away, the palm-tree will sometimes live 
and produce a dry tough fruit of little value.* But on 
the whole the contrast between land naturally productive 
and land artificially fertilised, as it presents itself to the 
Arabian husbandman, has no direct connection with rain- 
fall, but depends on the depth of the ground-water. 
Where the roots of the date-palm can reach the sub- 
terranean flow, or where a fountain sends forth a stream 
whose branches fertilise an oasis without the toil of the 


1 Cf. the remarks of Dillmann in his comm. on Gen. i. 6-8. 

2Ibn Sad, No. 80. Here Wellhausen introduces a reference to agri- 
culture, but in rendering janadbund, ‘‘ our palm gardens,” he departs from 
the traditional interpretation. (See Lane.) 

3 Such palms and the land they grow on are called ‘idhy, pl. a‘dha ; the 
dates are sahh or casb; see Al-Azhari’s luminous account of the different 
kinds of date-palms in the isdn, s.v. ba‘7. In the traditions that require a 
whole tithe to be paid on crops watered by rain the ‘idhy seems to be mainly 
contemplated ; for in Ibn Sa'd, No. 68, the prophet exacts no tithe on such 
precarious crops as cucumbers raised on ground watered by rain. I rode in 
1880 through a desolate plain of heavy soil some miles to the 8.-E. of Mecca, 
and was told that after good rain the waste would be covered with patches 
of melonstand the like. (See Lectures and Essays, p. 508 sqq.) 


LECT, III. OF BAALS LAND 99 


ey 


water-wheel, the ground is naturally fertile, and such land 
is “watered by the Bal.” The best Arabian authorities 
say expressly that bal palm-trees are such as drink by 
their roots, without artificial irrigation and without rain, 
“from the water which God has created beneath the 
earth,”! and in an exact specification of what is liable 
to the full tithe the bal and the sky are mentioned 
together, not used interchangeably.? 


1 Al-Asmaii and Al-Azhari in the Lisdn, s.v. ba‘l. This article and the 
materials collected in the Glossary to De Goeje’s Belddhori give almost all 
the evidence. I may add a ref. to Ibn Sa‘d, No. 119, compared with No. 
78, and Macrizi Khitat, ii. 129, and in the next note I will cite some of the 
leading traditions, which are very inaccurately given by Sprenger in 7DM@. 
XViii. 

2 The fullest expressions are, Bokhari, ii. 122 (Bilac vocalised ed.), 
‘‘what is watered by the sky and the fountains or is ‘athari” ; Mowatta 
(Tunis ed.), p. 94, ‘‘ what is watered by the sky and the fountains and the 
ba'l” ; ibid. p. 95, ‘‘what is watered by the sky and the fountains or is ba’?.”’ 
Shorter phrases are, Beladh. p. 70, ‘‘ what is watered by the ba‘7 and what is 
watered by the sky,” with such variants as ‘‘the surface flow [ghail, sath] 
and the sky” (ib. p. 71), ‘‘the fountains and the sky” (B. Hisham, 956), 
‘*the rivers and the clouds” (Moslim, ed. of A.H. 1290, i. 268). These 
variations are intelligible if we bear in mind the aspect of the cultivated 
patches in such a valley as the Batn Marr. The valley is a great water- 
course, but for the most part the water flows underground, breaking out in 
powerful springs where there is a sharp fall in the ground, and sometimes 
flowing for a few hundred yards in a visible stream, which is soon led off in 
many branches through the palms and tiny corn-fields and presently dis- 
appears again under the sand and stones. Where the hard bottom is level 
and near the surface, the palms can drink from their roots where there is no 
visible stream ; but where the bottom lies deep (as in the neighbourhood of 
Taif) cultivation is possible only by the use of the water-wheel, and then the 
tithe is reduced to 5 percent. Where irrigation can be effected by gravita- 
tion through a pipe or channel, without pumping, the land is still regarded 
as naturally fertile and pays full tithe ; see G7. Bel. and Ibn Sa‘d, No. 119. 
According to one interpretation, the obscure word ‘athari, which I have not 
met with in any tradition except that cited above, means land watered by 
an artificial channel (‘aéhir). This may be a mere guess, for the oldest and 
best Arabian scholars seem to have had no clear understanding of the word ; 
but at least it is preferable to the view which identifies ‘athari and ‘idhy. 
For a comparison of the traditions given above indicates that ‘athari is 
either a synonym for ba‘? or some species thereof ; moreover, the oasis in 
W. Sirhin which Guarmani (p. 209) calls Etera, and Lady Anne Blunt 
(Nejd, i. 89 sqq.) writes Itheri, can hardly be anything else than ‘ Athavi in a 
modern pronunciation. (Huber writes it with initial ali/, but his ortho- 


100 ORIGINAL SENSE LECT, 

The Arabian evidence therefore leads us to associate 
the life-giving operation of the Ba‘l or Baal, not with the 
rains of heaven, but with springs, streams and underground 
flow. On the other hand it is clear (eg. from Hosea) that 
among the agricultural peoples of Canaan the Baalim were 
looked upon as the authors of all fertility, including the 
corn crops, which are wholly dependent on rain in most 
parts of Palestine. And it is here that we find the sky- 
Baal (Baal-shamaim) with such local forms as Marna “ the 
lord of rains” at Gaza.1. Thus the question arises whether 
the original Semitic conception of the sphere of the Baal’s 
activity has been modified in Arabia to suit its special 
climate, or whether, on the other hand, the notion of the 
Baal as lord of rain is of later growth. 

It would be easier to answer this question if we knew 
with certainty whether the use of Baal (Ba‘l) as a divine 
title is indigenous to Arabia or Borrowed from the agri- 
cultural Semites beyond the peninsula. On the former 
alternative, which is accepted by some of the first scholars 
of our day, such as Wellhausen and Noldeke, Baal-worship 
must be held to be older than the Semitic dispersion, and 
graphy, as the editors warn us, is not greatly to be trusted.) ‘Athari, for 
which some good authorities give also ‘aththari (see Lisdn), seems to mean 
‘belonging to Athtar,” the S. Arabian god, who corresponds in name, but 
not in sex, to the Babylonian Ishtar, the Phenician Astarte, and the 
Aramaic ‘Attar or Athar. Athtar is one of the 8S. Arabian gods who preside 
over irrigation (CJS. pt. 4; cf. ZDMG. xxxvii. 371); cf. also the place 
‘Aththar, described as a jungly haunt of lions (Banat So'dd, 46). 

The crops dependent on rain are so unimportant in most parts of Arabia 
that some of the prophet’s decrees pass them by altogether, and simply say 
that the sath pays full tithe (Ibn Sad, No. 68). Thus it is easy to under- 
stand how, in less precise speech, the term ba7 is applied a potiori to all crops 
not artificially irrigated ; and so, when the empire of Islam was extended to 
lands of more copious rain, confusion arose and the true meaning of ba'l was 
obscured. The corn crops of Palestine, which strictly speaking are a‘dha 
(Abulf. ed. Reinaud, p. 227), and those near Alexandria, which are sown on 
the retiring of the Nile, are alike said by Mocaddasi to be ‘‘on the ba‘l”; 


but this is not in accordance with the old classical usage. 
1 Procopius of Gaza, iii. 19, in Galland, vol. ix,—‘‘ dominus imbrium.” 


LECT. II. OF BAAL'S LAND 101 


to belong to an age when all the Semites were still 
nomadic. And in that case it can hardly be doubted 
that the Arabs, as the nearest representatives of ancient 
Semitic life, held most closely to the original conception 
of the Baal. Personally I think it most probable that 
Baal as a divine title entered Arabia with the date-palm, 
whose culture is certainly not indigenous to the peninsula. 
There is direct proof from inscriptions of the worship of 
“the Baal” among the Nabatzans of the Sinaitic desert 
to the north, and among the Sabeans and Himyarites 
in the south of the peninsula; but for central Arabia 
Baal-worship is only an inference from certain points 
of language, of which the most important is the phrase 
we have been considering! Thus, to say the least, it is 
possible that Baal-worship was never known to the 
pastoral Bedouins except in so far as they came under 
the influence of the denizens of the agricultural oases, 
who had borrowed their art from Syria or Irac, and, 
according to all analogy, could not have failed to borrow 
at the same time so much of the foreign religion as was 
deemed necessary to secure the success of their husbandry. 
But even on this hypothesis I conceive it to be in the 
highest degree improbable that Baal on entering Arabia 
was changed from a god of rain to a god of springs and 
watery bottoms. We have here to do mainly with the 
culture of the date-palm, and I find no evidence that this 
tree was largely grown on land watered by rain alone in 
any part of the Semitic area. And even in Palestine, 
which is the typical case of a Semitic country dependent 
on rain, there is so vast a difference between the pro- 
ductiveness of lands that are watered by rain alone and 
those which enjoy natural or artificial irrigation, that we 
can hardly conceive the idea of natural fertility, expressed 
1 See Noldeke in ZDMG. xl. 174; and Wellhausen!, p. 170. 


102 ORIGINAL SENSE LECT. IIL 


by the term Baal’s land, to have been originally connected 
with the former. For my own part I have no doubt that 
Semitic agriculture began, as it has always most flourished, 
in places naturally watered by springs and streams, and 
that the language of agricultural religion was fixed by the 
conditions prevailing in such places.? 

I see an important confirmation of this view in the 
local character of the Baalim, which has always been a 
hopeless puzzle to those who begin with the conception 
of the Baal as a sky god, but is at once intelligible if 
the seats of the gods were originally sought in spots of 
natural fertility, by springs and river-banks, in the groves 
and tangled thickets and green tree-shaded glades of 
mountain hollows and deep watercourses. All the Semites, 
as we shall presently see, attached a certain sanctity to 
such places. quite apart from agriculture; and as agriculture 
must have begun in naturally productive spots, it is 
inevitable to infer that agricultural religion took its 
starting - point from the sanctity already attaching to 
waters groves and meadows.? The difficulty which we 


1 A good conception of the material conditions of Palestinian agriculture 
may be got from an article by Anderlind in ZDPV. ix. (1886). The follow- 
ing illustration from Belddhori, p. 151, may be helpful. The district of 
Baho (Baibalissus) was dependent on rain alone, and paid the usual tithes. 
The inhabitants proposed to Maslama that he should make them an irrigation 
canal from the Euphrates, and offered to pay him one-third of their crops in 
addition to the tithe. 

2 In this argument I have not ventured to lay any weight on the Mishnic 
use of the term, ‘‘ Baal’s field.” In Palestine, many centuries before the 
Mishna was composed, the Baalim were certainly regarded as fertilising the 
corn crops, and must therefore have been viewed as givers of rain ; thus it is 
only natural that Baal’s land, as opposed to land artificially irrigated, should 
include corn-lands wholly dependent on rain, as it plainly does in B. B. iii. 1. 
On the other hand, there are clear indications that even in Palestine the word 
was sometimes used in a sense corresponding to the Arabic usage ; in other 
words, that crops which cannot be raised in Palestine except in spots 
naturally moist or artificially watered are divided into by and pw. This 
distinction, for example, is applied to such vegetables as onions and cabbages 
(Terwm. x. 11; Shebi. ii. 9), and in Suc, iii. 3 we read of a water-willow 
(populus Euphratica) grown on the ba‘l. Moreover, in Shebt. ii. 9 there is a 


LECT. mm. OF BAAL’S LAND 103 


A ES 


feel in accepting this view arises mainly from the totally 
different climate in which we live. When a man has 
journeyed in the Arabian wilderness, traversing day after 
day stony plateaus, black volcanic fields, or arid sands 
walled in by hot mountains of bare rock and relieved by 
no other vegetation than a few grey and thorny acacias or 
scanty tufts of parched herbage, till suddenly, at a turn of 
the road, he emerges on a Wady where the ground-water 
rises to the surface, and passes as if by magic into a new 
world, where the ground is carpeted with verdure, and a 
grove of stately palm-trees spreads forth its canopy of shade 
against the hot and angry heaven, he does not find it 
difficult to realise that to early man such a spot was 
verily a garden and habitation of the gods. In Syria the 
contrasts are less glaring than in the desert; but only in 
the spring time, and in many parts of the country not even 
then, is the general fertility such that a fountain or a 
marshy bottom with its greensward and thicket of natural 
wood can fail strongly to impress the imagination. Nor 
are the religious associations of such a scene felt only by 
heathen barbarians. “The trees of the Lord drink their 
fill, the cedars of Lebanon which He hath planted: Where 
the birds make their nests; as for the stork, the fir-trees 
are her house” (Ps. civ. 16). This might pass for the 
description of the natural sanctuary of the Baal of 
Lebanon, but who does not feel its solemn grandeur ? 
Or who will condemn the touch of primitive naturalism 


clear statement that vegetables grown on the bu'l were irrigated, so that the 
contrast with ‘py’ can only be maintained by supposing that the latter term, 
as is the case in Arabia, is restricted to laborious irrigation (e.g. by water 
drawn from a cistern), and that vegetable gardens lying beneath a spring on 
the hillside, such as still common in Palestine, were reckoned to the ba'‘l. 
The only vegetables that were and are commonly grown in Palestine on the 
open field before the summer sun has dried up the ground are those of the 
gourd and cucumber kind; see Shebi. ii. 1; Klein in ZDPV. iv. 82, and 
cf. Isa. i. 8. 


104 THE BAALIM AS LECT. IIL 


that colours the comparison in the first Psalm: “ He shall 
be like a tree planted by watercourses, that bringeth forth 
his fruit in his season ; his leaf also shall not wither, and 
whatsoever he doeth shall prosper ” (Ps. 1. 3) ? 

When the conception of Baal’s land is thus narrowed to 
its oldest form, and limited to certain favoured spots that 
seem to be planted and watered by the hand of the gods, 
we are on the point of passing from the idea of the land of 
the god to that of his homestead and sanctuary. But 
before we take this step it will be convenient for us to 
glance rapidly at the way in which the primitive idea was 
widened and extended. Ultimately, as we see from Hosea, 
all agricultural produce was regarded as the gift of the 
Baalim, and all the worshippers who frequented a par- 
ticular sanctuary brought a tribute of first-fruits to the 
local god, whether their crops grew on land naturally moist 
and fertile, or on land laboriously irrigated, or on fields 
watered by the rain of heaven. The god therefore had 
acquired certain proprietary rights, or at least certain 
rights of suzerainty, over the whole district inhabited by his 
worshippers, far beyond the limits of the original Baal’s land. 

The first step in this process is easily understood from 
the fundamental principles of Semitic land-law. Property 
in water is older and more important than property in 
land. In nomadic Arabia there is no property, strictly so 
called, in desert pastures, but certain families or tribes 
hold the watering-places without which the right of pasture 
is useless. Or, again, if a man digs a well he has a pre- 
ferential right to water his camels at it before other camels 
are admitted; and he has an absolute right to prevent 
others from using the water for agricultural purposes 
unless they buy it from him. This is Moslem law; but 


1To the same circle of ideas belongs the conception of the Garden of 
Eden, planted by God, and watered not by rain but by rivers, 


LECT. III. LORDS OF WATER 108 
it is broadly in accordance with old Arabian custom, and 
indeed with general Semitic custom, as appears from many 
passages of the Old Testament.1 On these principles it 
is clear that even in the nomadic stage of society the god 
of the waters may be held to exercise certain vague rights 
over the adjoining pasture lands, the use of which depends 
on access to the watering-places. And with the intro- 
duction of agriculture these rights become definite. All 
irrigated lands are dependent on him for the water that 
makes them fertile, and pay him first-fruits or tithes in 
acknowledgment of his bounty. So far all is clear, and 
in many parts of the Semitic area—notably in the alluvium 
of the Euphrates and Tigris, the granary of the ancient 
_ East—agriculture is so completely dependent on irrigation 
that no more than this is needed to bring all habitable 
land within the domain of the gods who send forth from 
the storehouse of subterranean waters, fountains and 
rivers to quicken the dead soil, and so are the authors of 
all growth and fertility. But in Palestine the corn crops, 
which form a chief source of agricultural wealth, are 
mainly grown without irrigation on land watered by rain 
alone. Yet in Hosea’s time the first-fruits of corn were 
offered at the shrines of the Baalim, who had therefore 
become, in Canaan, the givers of rain as well as the lords 
of terrestrial waters. The explanation of this fact must 
be sought in the uncontrolled use of analogy characteristic 
of early thought. The idea that the Baalim were the 
authors of all fertility can only have taken shape among 
communities whose agriculture was essentially dependent 
on irrigation. But a little consideration will convince 

1 Gen. xxi. 25 sgq., xxvi. 17 sgq.; Judg. i. 15; joint ownership in a well, 
Gen. xxix. 8; Ex. ii. 16. Traces of a water law stricter than that of Islam 
appear in Deut. ii. 6, 28; but the Arabian law, that the wayfarer and his 


beasts were allowed to drink freely, but not to anticipate the owners of 
the water, must always have been the general rule. (Cf. Lectures, p. 520.) 


106 THE BAALIM AS LECT, I 


us that even in Palestine the earliest agriculture was 
necessarily of this type. Cultivation begins in the most 
fertile spots, which in that climate means the spots watered 
by streams and fountains. In such places agricultural 
villages must have existed, each with its worship of the 
local Baal, while the broad plains of Sharon or Esdraelon 
were still abandoned to wandering herdsmen. As _ hus- 
bandry spread from these centres and gradually covered 
the whole land, the worship of the Baalim spread with it; 
the gods of the springs extended their domain over the 
lands watered by the sky, and gradually added to their 
old attributes the new character of “lords of rain.” 
The physical notions of the early Semites lent themselves 
readily enough to this development. Men saw with their 
own eyes that clouds rise from the sea (1 Kings xvi. 44) 
or from “the ends of the earth,” ze. the distant horizon 
(Jer. x. 13; Ps. exxxv. 7), and so they had no reason 
to doubt that the rain came from the same storehouse 
as the fountains and streams of the Baalim! In the 
oldest poetry of the Hebrews, when Jehovah rides over 
His land in the thunderstorm, His starting-point is not 
heaven but Mount Sinai; a natural conception, for in 
mountainous regions storms gather round the highest 
summits. And on this analogy we may infer that when 
the rainclouds lay heavy on the upland glens and wooded 
crown of Lebanon, where the great Baalim of Phoenicia 
had their most famous seats at the sources of sacred 

1] cannot follow Dillmann in regarding the cosmology of Gen. i., with 
its twofold storehouse of water above and beneath the firmament, as more 
primitive than the simpler conception of rising clouds (O°x'w3). The cos- 
mology of Gen. i. is confined to post-exilic writings (for 2 Kings vii. 2, 19 
is not to the point), and involves a certain amount of abstract thought ; 
while the other view merely represents things as they appear to the eye. 
It is quite a mistake to find a doctrine of evaporation in passages like Jer. 


x. 13; the epithet nesi’tm refers to the visible movements of the clouds; 
ef, such Arabic epithets as hadi, ‘‘a cloud crouching on the horizon.” 


1S a a 


LECT. III. GIVERS OF FERTILITY 107 


streams, their worshippers would see a visible proof that 
the gods of the fountains and rivers were also the givers 
of rain. In the latest stage of Phcenician religion, when 
all deities were habitually thought of as heavenly or astral 
beings, the holiest sanctuaries were still those of the primi- 
tive fountains and river gods, and both ritual and legend 
continued to bear witness to the original character of these 
deities. Many examples of this will come before us in 
due course; for the present, it may suffice to cite the case 
of Aphaca, where the Urania or heaven goddess was wor- 
shipped by casting gifts into the sacred pool, and where it 
was fabled that once a year the goddess descended into the 
waters in the shape of a falling star. 

Finally the life-giving power of the god was not limited 
to vegetative nature, but to him also was ascribed the 
increase of animal life, the multiplication of flocks and 
herds, and, not least, of the human inhabitants of the 
land. For the increase of animate nature is obviously 
conditioned, in the last resort, by the fertility of the soil, 
and primitive races, which have not learned to differentiate 
the various kinds of life with precision, think of animate 
as well as vegetable life as rooted in the earth and sprung 
from it. The earth is the great mother of all things in 
most mythological philosophies, and the comparison of the 
life of mankind, or of a stock of men, with the life of a 
tree, which is so common in Semitic as in other primitive 
poetry, is not in its origin a mere figure. Thus where 
the growth of vegetation is ascribed to a particular divine 
power, the same power receives the thanks and homage of 
his worshippers for the increase of cattle and of men. 

Firstlings as well as first-fruits were offered at the shrines 


1Sozomen, ii. 5; cf. the fallen star which Astarte is said to have 
consecrated at the holy isle of Tyre (Philo Byblius in Fr. Hist. Gr. iii. 
569). 


108 BAAL WORSHIP LECT. IL 


— 


of the Baalim,! and one of the commonest classes of per- 
sonal names given by parents to their sons or daughters 
designates the child as the gift of the god.” 

In this rapid sketch of the development of the idea of 
the local Baalim I have left many things to be confirmed 
or filled out in detail by subsequent reference to the 
particulars of their ritual, and I abstain altogether from 
entering at this stage into the influence which the con- 
ception of the Baalim as productive and reproductive 
powers exercised on the development of a highly sensual 
mythology, especially when the gods were divided into 
sexes, and the Baal was conceived as the male principle 
of reproduction, the husband of the land which he 
fertilised,’ for this belongs rather to the discussion of the 
nature of the gods. 


1 We shall see as we proceed that the sacrifice of firstlings is older than 
agricultural religion, and was not originally a tribute like the first-fruits. 
But in religions of the Baal type firstlings and first-fruits were brought 
under the same general conception. 

2 To this class belong primarily the numerous Hebrew and Phenician 
names compounded with forms of the root jn) or jn’, ‘‘to give” (Heb. 
Jonathan, Phen. Baaliathon; Heb. Mattaniah, Phen. Mutumbal [mase. 
and fem.], etc.; Nabatean, Cosnathan [Euting, No. 12]); and Arabic names 
formed by adding the god’s name to Wahb, Zaid (perhaps also Aus), ‘‘ gift 
of.” Cognate to these are the names in which the birth of a son is recog- 
nised as a proof of the divine favour (Heb. Hananiah, Johanan; Phen. 
Hannibal, No‘ammilkat [CZS. No. 41], etc.; Edomite, Baal-Hanan [Gen. 
xxxvi. 38]; Ar. Newnan [Wadd. 2143], ‘‘favour of El,” Auf-el, ‘‘[ good? 
augury from El,” Ovaddnao0s [Wadd. 2372], ‘‘love of El”), or which express 
the idea that he has helped the parents or heard their prayers (Heb. Azariah, 
Shemaiah; Phcoen. Asdrubal, Eshmunazar, ete.); cf. Gen. xxix. xxx., 
1 Sam. i. Fimally there is a long series of names such as Yehavbaal 
(CIS. No. 69), Kemoshyehi (De Vogiié, Afélanges, p. 89), ‘‘ Baal, Chemosh 
gives life.” The great variety of gods referred to in Phenician names of 
these forms shows that the gift of children was ascribed to all Baalim, each 
in his own sphere; cf. Hosea, chap. i. 

3 This conception appears in Hosea and underlies the figure in Isa, Lxii. 4, 
where married land (be‘tlah) is contrasted with wilderness ; Wellhausen, 
Heidenthum1, p. 170. It is a conception which might arise naturally 
enough from the ideas above developed, but was no doubt favoured by the 
use of baal to mean “‘ husband.”” How baal comes to mean husband is not 


po ae 


‘“ 
a seuss. 2 


LECT, ITI. IN ARABIA 108 


You will observe also that the sequence of ideas which 
I have proposed is applicable in its entirety only tc 
agricultural populations, such as those of Canaan, Syria, 
and Irac on the one hand and of Yemen on the other. 
It is in these parts of the Semitic field that the concep- 
tion of the local gods as Baalim is predominant, though 
traces of Bal as a divine title are found in Central 
Arabia in various forms. 

In the central parts of Arabia agriculture was confined 
to oases, and the vocabulary connected with it is mainly 
borrowed from the northern Semites.2 Many centuries 
before the date of the oldest Arabic literature, when 
the desert was the great highway of Eastern commerce, 
colonies of the settled Semites, Yemenites, and Arameans 
occupied the oases and watering-places in the desert that 
were suitable for commercial stations, and to these immi- 
grants must be ascribed the introduction of agriculture 
and even of the date-palm itself. The most developed 
cukis of Arabia belong not to the pure nomads, but to 
these agricultural and trading settlements, which the 
Bedouins visited only as pilgrims, not to pay stated 
homage to the lord of the land from which they drew 
their life, but in fulfilment of vows. As most of our 
knowledge about Arabian cults refers to pilgrimages and 
the visits of the Bedouins, the impression is produced 
that all offerings were vows, and that fixed tribute of the 
fruits of the earth, such as was paid in the settled lands 


perfectly clear; the name is certainly associated with monandry and the 
appropriation of the wife to her husband, but it does not imply a servile 
relation, for the slave-girl does not call her master ba‘7. Probably the key 
is to be found in the notion that the wife is her husband’s tillage (Coran 
ii. 233), in which case private rights over land were older than exclusive 
marital rights. 

1 For the evidence see Noldeke in ZDMG. vol. xl. (1886) p. 174; and 
Wellhausen, Heidenthum', p. Y70; 7 p. 146. 

2 Frankel, Aram. Fremdww. p. 125. 


110 BAAL WORSHIP LECT. Il. 


to local Baalim, was unknown; but this impression is not 
accurate. From the Coran (vi. 137) and other sources we 
have sufficient evidence that the settled Arabs paid to the 
god a regular tribute from their fields, apparently by 
marking off as his a certain portion of the irrigated and 
cultivated ground! Thus as regards the settled Arabs 
the parallelism with the other Semites is complete, and 
the only question is whether cults of the Baal type and 
the name of Baal itself were not borrowed, along with 
agriculture, from the northern Semitic peoples. 

This question I am disposed to answer in the affirma- 
tive; for I find nothing in the Arabic use of the word ba‘l 
and its derivatives which is inconsistent with the view that 
they had their origin in the cultivated oases, and much 
that strongly favours such a view. ‘The phrase “ land 
which the Baal waters” has no sense till it is opposed to 
“land which the hand of man waters,” and irrigation is 
certainly not older than agriculture. It is questionable 
whether the idea of the godhead as the permanent or 
immanent source of life and fertility—-a very different 


1 All the evidence on this point has been confused by an early misunder- 
standing of the passage in the Coran: ‘‘They set apart for Allah a portion 
of the tilth or the cattle he has created, and say, This is Allah’s—as they 
fancy—and this belongs to our partners (idols); but what is assigned to 
idols does not reach Allah, and what is assigned to Allah really goes to 
the idols.” It is plain that the heathen said indifferently ‘‘ this belongs to 
Allah,” meaning the local god (cf. Wellh. Heid. p. 217 sq.), or this belongs te 
such and such a deity (naming him), and Mohammed argues, exactly as 
Hosea does in speaking of the homage paid by his contemporaries to local 
Baalim, whom they identified with Jehovah, that whether they say 
‘¢ Allah” or ‘‘ Hobal,” the real object of their homage is a false god. But 
the traditional interpretation of the text is that one part was set aside for 
the supreme Allah and another for the idols, and this distortion has 
coloured all accounts of what the Arabs actually did, for of course historical 
tradition must be corrected by the Coran. Allowance being made for this 
error, which made the second half of the verse say that Allah was habitually 
cheated out of his share in favour of the idols, the notices in Ibn Hisham, 
p. 58, Sprenger, Leb. Moh. iii. 358, Pocock, Specimen, p. 112, may be 
accepted as based upon fact. In Pocock’s citation from the Nazm al-dorr 
it appears that irrigated land is referred to. 


AO Se ig ee et Oe eee 


LECT, IM. IN ARABIA 111 


thing from the belief that the god is the ancestor of his 
worshippers—had any place in the old tribal religion of 
the nomadic Arabs. To the nomad, who does not practise 
irrigation, the source of life and fertility is the rain that 
quickens the desert pastures, and there is no evidence that 
rain was ascribed to tribal deities. The Arabs regard rain 
as depending on the constellations, ze. on the seasons, 
which affect all tribes alike within a wide range; and so 
when the showers of heaven are ascribed to a god, that 
god is Allah, the supreme and non-tribal deity.’ It is to 
be noted also that among the Arabs the theophorous 
proper names that express religious ideas most akin to 
those of the settled Semites are derived from deities 
whose worship was widespread and not confined to the 
nomads. Further it will appear in a later lecture that 
the fundamental type of Arabian sacrifice does not take 
the form of a tribute to the god, but is simply an act of 
communion with him. The gift of firstlings, indeed, which 
has so prominent a place in Canaanite religion, is not 
unknown in Arabia. But this aspect of sacrifice has very 
little prominence; we find no approach to the payment 
of stated tribute to the gods, and the festal sacrifices at 
fixed seasons, which are characteristic of religions that 
regard the gods as the source of the annual renovation 
of fertility in nature, seem to have been confined to the 
great sanctuaries at which the nomads appeared only as 
pilgrims before a foreign. god.” In these pilgrimages the 
nomadic Arabs might learn the name of Baal, but they 


1 Wellhausen, Heid. p. 210; cf. Ibn Sa‘d, No. 80; Diw. Hodh. exiii. 18. 
Note also that rain is not one of the boons prayed for at ‘Arafa (Agh. iii. 4 ; 
ef. xix. 132. 6), though charms to produce rain were used (Wellh. p. 167). 
These evidences do not prove that the gods were never appealed to as rain- 
makers, but they render it very improbable that they were habitually 
thought of as such. 

2 Cf. Wellhausen, Heid.! p. 116; ? p. 121 sq. 


112 THE HOMES OR HAUNTS LECT. Ii. 
could not assimilate the conception of the god as a land- 
owner and apply it to their own tribal deities, for the 
simple reason that in the desert private property in land 
was unknown and the right of water and of pasturage was 
common to every member of the tribe But in estimating 
the influence on Arabian religion of agriculture and the 
ideas connected with settled life, we must remember how 
completely, in the centuries before Mohammed, the gods 
of the madar (“glebe,” 2c. villagers and townsfolk) had 
superseded the gods of the wabar (“hair,” «ie. dwellers 
in haircloth tents). Much the most important part of 
the religious practices of the nomads consisted in pilgrim- 


ages to the great shrines of the town Arabs, and even 


the minor sanctuaries, which were frequented only by 
particular tribes, seem to have been often fixed at spots 
where there was some commencement of settled life. 
Where the god had a house or temple we recognise the 
work of men who were no longer pure nomads, but had 
begun to form fixed homes; and indeed modern observation 
shows that, when an Arab tribe begins to settle down, it 
acquires the elements of husbandry before it gives up its 
tents and learns to erect immovable houses. Again there 
were sanctuaries without temples, but even at these the 
god had his treasure in a cave, and a priest who took care 
of his possessions, and there is no reason to think that the 
priest was an isolated hermit. The presumption is that 


1 We shall see in the next lecture that the institution of the hima or 
sacred pasture-land is not based on the idea of property but on a principle 
of taboo. A main argument for the antiquity of Baal religion in Arabia 
is drawn from the denominative verb ba‘tda = aliha, which means ‘‘to be in 
a state of helpless panic and perplexity,” literally ‘‘to be Baal-struck.” 
But such results are more naturally to be ascribed to the influence of an 
alien god than of a tribal divinity, and the word may well be supposed to 
have primarily expressed the confusion and mazed perplexity of the nomad 
when he finds himself at some great feast at a pilgrim shrine, amidst the 
strange habits and worship of a settled population; cf. Aithiopic ba‘ad, 

feast.” 


: 
j 
‘ 


* ~~ 
oe eee 


le Ee 


LECT. 111. OF THE GODS 113 
almost every holy place at the time of Mohammed was a 
little centre of settled agricultural life, and so also a centre 
of ideas foreign to the purely nomadic worshippers that 
frequented it. 

The final result of this long discussion is that the 
conception of the local god as Baal or lord of the land, 
the source of its fertility and the giver of all the good 
things of life enjoyed by its inhabitants, is intimately 
bound up with the growth of agricultural society, and 
involves a series of ideas unknown to the primitive life 
of the savage huntsman or the pure pastoral nomad. But 
we have also seen that the original idea of Baal’s land was 
limited to certain favoured spots that seem to be planted 
and watered by the hand of the god, and to form, as it 
were, his homestead. Thus in its beginnings the idea of 
the land of the god appears to be only a development, in 
accordance with the type of agricultural life, of the more 
primitive idea that the god has a special home or haunt 
on earth. Agricultural habits teach men to look on this 
home as a garden of God, cultivated and fertilised by the 
hand of deity, but it was not agriculture that created the 
conception that certain places were the special haunts of 


1In Arabia one section of a tribe is often nomadic while another is 
agricultural, but in spite of their kinship the two sections feel themselves 
very far apart in life and ways of thought, and a nomad girl often refuses 
to stay with a village husband. Im this connection the traditions of the 
foreign origin of the cult at Mecca deserve more attention than is generally 
paid to them, though not in the line of Dozy’s speculations. To the tribes 
of the desert the religion of the towns was foreign in spirit and contrasted 
in many ways with their old nomadic habits ; moreover, as we have seen, 
it was probably coloured from the first by Syrian and Nabatean influences. 
Yet it exercised a great attraction, mainly by appealing to the sensual part 
of the Bedouin’s nature; the feasts were connected with the markets, and 
at them there was much jollity and good cheer. They began to be looked 
on as making up the sum of religion, and the cult of the gods came to be 
almost entirely dissociated from daily life, and from the customs associated 
with the sanctity of kinship, which at one time made up the chief part of 
nomad religion. Cf. Wellh., Heid. p. 215 sq. 

8 


114 THE HOMES OR HAUNTS LECT, m1. 


superhuman powers. ‘That the gods are not ubiquitous 
but subject to limitations of time and space, and that they 
can act only where they or their messengers are present, 
is the universal idea of antiquity and needs no explanation. 
In no region of thought do men begin with transcendental 
ideas and conceive of existences raised above space and 
time. Thus whatever the nature of the gods, they were 
doubtless conceived from the first as having their proper 
homes or haunts, which they went forth from and returned 
to, and where they were to be found by the worshippers 
with whom they had fixed relations. We are not entitled 
to say & priori that this home would necessarily be a spot 
on the surface of the earth, for, just as there are fowls of 
the heaven and fish of the sea as well as beasts of the 
field, there might be, and in fact were, celestial gods and 
gods of the waters under the earth as well as godg 
terrestrial. In later times celestial gods predominate, as 
we see from the prevalence of sacrifice by-fire, in which 
the homage of the worshipper is directed upwards in the 
pillar of savoury smoke that rises from the altar towards 
the seat of the godhead in the sky. But all sacrifices are 
not made by fire. The Greeks, especially in older times, 
buried the sacrifices devoted to gods of the underworld, 
and threw into the water gifts destined for the gods of 
seas and rivers. Both these forms of fireless ritual are 
found also among the Semites; and indeed among the 
Arabs sacrifices by fire were almost unknown, and the gift 
of the worshipper was conveyed to the deity simply by 
being laid on sacred ground, hung on a sacred tree, or, in 
the case of liquid offerings and sacrificial blood, poured over 
a sacred stone. In such cases we have the idea of locality 
connected with the godhead in the simplest form. There 
is a fixed place on the earth’s surface, marked by a 
sacred tree or a sacred stone, where the god is wont to 


LECT. It. OF THE GODS 115 


be found, and offerings deposited there have reached their 
address. 

In later times the home or sanctuary of a god was a 
temple, or, as the Semites call it, a “house” or “ palace.” 
But as a rule the sanctuary is older than the house, and 
the god did not take up his residence in a place because a 
house had been provided for him, but, on the contrary, 
when men had learned to build houses for themselves, they 
also set up a house for their god in the place which was 
already known as his home. Of course, as population in- 
creased and temples were multiplied, means were found to 
evade this rule, and new sanctuaries were constituted in 
the places most convenient for the worshippers; but even 
in such cases forms were observed which implied that a 
temple could not fitly be erected except in a place affected 
by the deity, and the greatest and holiest sanctuaries were 
those which, according to undisputed tradition, he had been 
known to frequent from time immemorial. 

That the gods haunted certain spots, which in conse- 
quence of this were holy places and fit places of worship, 
was to the ancients not a theory but a matter of fact, 
handed down by tradition from one generation to another, 
and accepted with unquestioning faith. Accordingly we 
find that new sanctuaries can be formed and new altars 
or temples erected, only where the godhead has given un- 
mistakable evidence of his presence. All that is necessary 
to constitute a Semitic sanctuary is a precedent; it is 
assumed that where the god has once manifested himself 
and shown favour to his worshippers he will do so again, 
and when the precedent has been strengthened by frequent 
repetition the holiness of the place is fully established. 
Thus in the earlier parts of the Old Testament a theophany 
is always taken to be a good reason for sacrificing on the 
spot. The deity has manifested himself either visibly or 


116 : HOLY PLACES IN LECT. IIl, 
by some mighty deed, and therefore an act of worship 
cannot be out of place. Saul builds an altar on the site 
of his victory over the Philistines, the patriarchs found 
sanctuaries on the spot where the deity has appeared 
to them,? Gideon and Manoah present an offering where 
they have received a divine message? Even in the Hebrew 
religion God is not equally near at all places and all times, 
and when a man is brought face to face with Him he 
seizes the opportunity for an act of ritual homage. But 
the ordinary practices of religion are not dependent on 
extraordinary manifestations of the divine presence; they 
proceed on the assumption that there are fixed places 
where the deity has appeared in the past and may be 
expected to appear again. When Jacob has his dream of 
a divine apparition at Bethel, he concludes not merely that 
Jehovah is present there at the moment, but that the 
place is “the house of God, the gate of heaven.” And 
accordingly Bethel continued to be regarded as a sanctuary 
of the first class down to the captivity. In like manner 
all the places where the patriarchs were recorded to have 
worshipped or where God appeared to them, figure as 
traditional holy places in the later history, and at least 
one of them, that of Mamre, was a notable sanctuary 
down to Christian times. We are entitled to use these 
facts as illustrative of Semitic religion in general, and not 
of the distinctive features of the spiritual religion of the 
Old Testament; for the worship of Bethel, Shechem, Beer- 
sheba, and the other patriarchal holy places, was mingled 
with Canaanite elements and is regarded as idolatrous by 
the prophets; and the later ritual at Mamre, which was 


put down by the Christian emperors, was purely heathenish. 
11 Sam. xiv. 35. 
2 Gen. xii. 7, xxii. 14, xxviii. 18 sqq.; cf. Ex. xvii. 15. 
3 Judg. vi. 20, xiii. 19. 
4 The evidence is collected by Reland, Palestina, p. 711 sqq. 


LECT. It. THE OLD TESTAMENT 117 


This law of precedent as forming a safe rule for ritual 
institutions is common to the Old Testament religion and 
to the surrounding heathenism; the difference lies in the 
interpretation put on it. And even in this respect all 
parts of the Old Testament are not on the same level 
By a prophet like Isaiah the residence of Jehovah in Zion 
‘is almost wholly dematerialised. Isaiah has not risen to 
the full height of the New Testament conception that God, 
who is spirit and is to be worshipped spiritually, makes 
no distinction of spot with regard to His worship, and is 
equally near to receive men’s prayers in every place; but 
he falls short of this view, not out of regard for ritual 
tradition, but because, conceiving Jehovah as the king of 
Israel, the supreme director of its national polity, he 
necessarily conceives His kingly activity as going forth from 
the capital of the nation. The ordinary conception of the 
Old Testament, in the historical books and in the Law, is 
not so subtle as this. Jehovah is not tied to one place 
more than another, but He is not to be found except in 
the places where “ He has set a memorial of His name,” 
and in these He “comes to His worshippers and blesses 
them” (Ex. xx. 24). Even this view rises above the 
current ideas of the older Hebrews in so far as it represents 
the establishment of fixed sanctuaries as an accommoda- 
tion to the necessities of man. It is obvious that in the 
history of Jacob’s vision the idea is not that Jehovah came 
to Jacob, but that Jacob was unconsciously guided to the 
place where there already was a ladder set between earth 
and heaven, and where, therefore, the godhead was peculiarly 
accessible. Precisely similar to this is the old Hebrew 
conception of Sinai or Horeb, “the Mount of God.” It is 
clear that in Ex. iii the ground about the burning bush 
does not become holy because God has appeared to Moses, 
On the contrary, the theophany takes place there because 


118 THE GODS AND LECT. lI 
it is holy ground, Jehovah’s habitual dwelling-place. In Ex. 
xix. 4, when Jehovah at Sinai says that He has brought 
the Israelites unto Himself, the meaning is that He has 
brought them to the Mount of God; and long after the 
establishment of the Hebrews in Canaan, poets and pro- 
phets describe Jehovah, when He comes to help His peepee 
as marching from Sinai in thundercloud and storm.? 

This point of view, which in the Old Testament appears 
only as an occasional survival of primitive thought, corre- 
sponds to the ordinary ideas of Semitic heathenism. The 
local relations of the gods are mr relations ; men 
worshi at a articular ‘spot “pecause it is the natur ome” 
or_h ae of. a god, “Holy places in this sense are older 
than temples, and even older than the beginnings of settled 
life. The nomad shepherd or the savage hunter has no 
fixed home, and cannot think of his god as having one, but 
he has’a district or beat to which his wanderings are 
usually confined, and within it again he has his favourite 
lairs or camping-places. And on this analogy he can 
imagine for himself tracts of sacred ground habitually — 

frequented by the gods, and ‘special points within these 
tracts which the deity particularly affects. By and by, 
under the influence of agricultiire’ “and “settled life, the 
sacred tract becomes the estate of the god, and the special 
sacred points within it become his temples; but originally 
the former is only a mountain or glade in the unenclosed 
_ wilderness, and the latter are merely spots in the desert 
- defined by some natural landmark, a cave, a rock, a fountain 


‘or a tree. 
| We have seen that, when a sanctuary was once con- 
' stituted, the mere force of tradition and precedent, the 


1 Deut. xxxiii. 2; Judg. v. 4 sqqg.; Hab. iii. 3. That the sanctity of Sinai 
is derived from the law-giving there is not the primitive idea. This appears 
most clearly from the critical analysis of the Pentateuch, but is sufficiently 
evident from the facts cited above. 


LECT. Il. THE JINN 119 


continuous custom of worshipping at it, were sufficient 
to maintain its character. At the more “developed 


sanctuaries the _temple, the image of the god, the whole 
apparatus of ritual, the miraculous legends recounted by 


the” > priests, ‘and the marvels that were actually displayed 
before. the eyes of the worshippers, were to an uncritical 
age sufficient confirmation of the belief that the “place 
was indeed a house of God. But in the most primitive 
sanctuaries there were no such artificial aids to faith, and 
it is not so easy to realise the process by which the 
traditional belief that a spot in the wilderness was the 
sacred ground of a particular deity became firmly estab- 
lished. Ultimately, as we have seen, the proof that the 
deity frequents a particular place lies in the fact that he 
manifests himself there, and the proof is cumulat. five in 


sapped eae 


proportion “Fo 0 the Frequency” ‘ot the ‘manifestations, vant he 
difficulty about this Tine of proof’ is’ not “that which 
naturally suggests itself to our minds. We find it hard 
to think of a visible manifestation of the godhead as an 
actual occurrence, but all primitive peoples believe in 
frequent theophanies, or at least in frequent occasions of 
personal contact~between men and superhuman powers. 
When all nature is mysterious and full of unknown 
activities, any natural object or occurrence which appeals 
strongly to the imagination, or excites sentiments of awe 
and reverence, is readily taken for a manifestation of 
divine or demoniac life. But a supernatural being as such 
is not a god, he becomes a god only when he enters into 
stated relations with man, or rather with a community of 


men. In the belief of the heathen Arabs, forexantplé, 


nature is full of living beings of superhuman - kind, the.. 


Jinn” 6¥° demons These junm are not pure spirits but 
RY A NASA AF ati ch Lg NPI LE RRL ROL NERC 

1 For details as to the jinn in ancient times, see Wellhausen, Heidenthum, 
p. 148 sqq. The later form of the belief in such beings, much modified by 


* 


120 THE GODS AND LECT. II 


corporeal. beings, more like beasts than men, for they are 
ordinarily represented as hairy, or have some other animal 
shape, as that of an ostrich or a snake. Their bodies are 
not phantasms, for if a junnt is killed a solid carcase 
remains; but they have certain mysterious powers of 
appearing and disappearing, or even of changing their 
aspect and temporarily assuming human form, and when 
they are offended they can avenge themselves in a super- 
natural way, eg. by sending disease or madness. Like the 
wild beasts, they have, for the most part, no friendly or 
stated relations with men, but are outside the pale of man’s 
society, and frequent savage and deserted places far from 
the wonted tread of men! It appears from several 
poetical passages of the Old Testament that the northern 
Semites believed in demons of a precisely similar kind, 
hairy beings (s¢tr?m), nocturnal monsters (Jilith), which 
haunted waste and desolate places, in fellowship with 
jackals and ostriches and other animals that. shun the 
abodes of man.” 

In Islam the gods | of heathenism are degraded into 
jinn, just as the gods _ of “north Semitic heathenism are 


BALA AE 


called _ sé Sirim.3. i in Lev. xvii. 7, or as the gods of Greece 


mia ce, SY roy 
RA: 


and Rome became devils to the early Christians. ‘Tn all 
these cases the adherents of “a yHighérfaith “were not 
prepared to deny that the heathen gods really existed, and 


Islam, is illustrated by Lane in Note 21 of the Introduction to his version 
of the Arabian Nights. In the old translation of the Arabian Nights they 
are called Genii. See also Van Vloten in Vienna Or. Jour. 1893, p. 169 sqq., 
from Al-Jahiz. 

1 Certain kinds of them, however, frequent trees and even human 
habitations, and these were identified with the serpents which appear and 
disappear so mysteriously about walls and the roots of trees. See Noldeke, 
Ztschr. f. Vélkerpsych. 1860, p. 412 sqq.; Wellh. ut sup. p. 152 sg. For the 
snake as the form of the jinn of trees, see Rasmussen, Addit. p. 71, compared 


with Jauhari and the Lisan, s. rad. \,.—. 
2 Isa. xiii. 2], xxxiv. 14; cf. Luke xi. 24. 
3 “* Hairy demons,” E.V. “devils,” but in Isa. xiii. 21 “ satyrs.” 


LECT, III. THE JINN 121 


did the things recorded of them; the difference between 
gods and demons les not in their nature and power— 
for the heathen themselves did not rate the power of 
their gods at omnipotence—but in their relations to man. 
The jinn would make very passable gods, for the cruder 
forms of heathenism, if they only had a circle of human 
dependants and worshippers; and conversely a god who 
loses his worshippers falls back into the ranks of the 
demons, as a being of vague and indeterminate powers 
who, having no fixed personal relations to men, is on 
the whole to be regarded as an enemy. The demons, 
like the gods, have their particular haunts which are 
regarded as awful and dangerous places. But the haunt 
of the jinn differs from a sanctuary as the yunn themselves 
differ from gods. The one is feared and avoided, the 
other is approached, not indeed without awe, but yet with 
hopeful confidence; for though there is no essential physical 
distinction between demons and gods, there is the funda- 
mental moral difference that the jinn are strangers and 
so, by the law of the desert, enemies, while the god, to 
the worshippers who frequent his sanctuary, is a known 
and friendly power. In fact the earth may be said to be 
parcelled out between demons and wild beasts on the one 
hand, and gods and men on the other To the former 
belong the untrodden wilderness with all its unknown 
perils, the wastes and jungles that lie outside the familiar 
tracks and pasture grounds of the tribe, and which only 
the boldest men venture upon without terror; to the 
latter belong the regions that man knows and habitually 
frequents, and within which he has established relations, 
not only with his human neighbours, but with the super- 


1 The close association between demons and wild beasts is well brought 
out in a scholion to Ibn Hisham (ii. 9, 1. 20, 23), where wild beasts and 
serpents swarm round a ruin, and every one who seeks to carry anything 
away from it is stricken by the jinn. 


* 


122 THE GODS AND LECT. III: 


natural beings that have their haunts side by side with 
him. And as man gradually encroaches on the wilderness 
and drives back the wild beasts before him, so the gods in 
like manner drive out the demons, and spots that were 
once feared, as the habitation of mysterious and pre- 
sumably malignant powers, lose their terrors and either 
become common ground or are transformed into the seats 
of friendly deities. From this point of view the recogni- 
tion of certain spots as haunts of the gods is the religious 
expression of the gradual subjugation of nature by man. 
In conquering the earth for himself primitive man has 
to contend not only with material difficulties but with 
superstitious terror of the unknown, paralysing his energies 
and forbidding him freely to put forth his strength to 
subdue nature to his use. Where the unknown demons 
reign he is afraid to set his foot and make the good things 
of nature his own. But where the god has his haunt he 
is on friendly soil, and has a protector near at hand; the 
mysterious powers of nature are his allies instead of his 
enemies, “ he is in league with the stones of the field, and 
the wild beasts of the field are at peace with him.” 4 

The triumph of the gods over the demons, like the 
triumph of man over wild beasts, must have been effected 
very gradually, and may be regarded as finally sealed and 
secured only in the agricultural stage, when the god of the 
community became also the supreme lord of the land and 
the author of all the good things therein. When this 
stage was reached the demons—or supernatural beings 
that have no stated relations to their human neighbours— 
were either driven out into waste and untrodden places, 
or were reduced to insignificance as merely subordinate 


1 Job v. 28. The allusion to the wild beasts is characteristic; cf. Hos, 
ii, 20 (18); 2 Kings xvii. 26. An Arabian parallel in Ibn Sa‘d, No, 145 
with Wellhausen’s note, Skizzen, iv. 194, 


a 
— ——o 


LECT III. THE JINN 123 


beings of which private superstition might take account 
but with which public religion had nothing to do. 
Within the region frequented by a community of men 
the god of the community was supreme; every pheno- 
menon that seemed supernatural was ordinarily referred to 
his initiative and regarded as a token of his personal 
presence, or of the presence of his messengers and agents ; 
and in consequence every place that had special super- 
natural associations was regarded, not as a haunt of 
unknown demons, but as a holy place of the known god. 
This is the point of view which prevailed among the 
ancient Hebrews, and undoubtedly prevailed also among 
their Canaanite neighbours. Up to a certain point the 
process involved in all this is not difficult to follow. That 
the powers that haunt a district in which men live and 
prosper must be friendly powers is an obvious conclusion. 
But it is not so easy to see how the vague idea of super- 
natural but friendly neighbours passes into the precise 
conception of a definite local god, or how the local power 
comes to be confidently identified with the tribal god of 
the community. The tribal god, as we have seen, has very 
definite and permanent relations to his worshippers, of a 
kind quite different from the local relations which we 
have just been speaking of; he is not merely their 
friendly neighbour, but (at least in most cases) their 
kinsman and the parent of their race. How does it come 
about that the parent of a race of men is identified with 
the superhuman being that haunts a certain spot, and 
manifests himself there by visible apparitions, or other 
evidence of his presence satisfactory to the untutored 
mind? The importance of such an _ identification is 
enormous, for it makes a durable alliance between man 
and certain parts of nature which are not subject to his 
will and control, and so permanently raises his position in 


124 THE GODS AND LECT. Ill 
the scale of the universe, setting him free, within a certain 
range, from the crushing sense of constant insecurity and 
vague dread of the unknown powers that close him in on 
every side. So great a step in the emancipation of man 
from bondage to his natural surroundings cannot have 
been easily made, and is not to be explained by any slight 
a& priori method. The problem is not one to be solved off- 
hand, but to be carefully kept in mind as we continue our 
studies. 

There is one thing, however, which it may be well to 
note at once. We have seen that through the local god, 
who on the one hand has fixed relations to a race of men, 
and on the other hand has fixed relations to a definite 
sphere of nature, the worshipper is brought into stated and 
permanent alliance with certain parts of his material 
environment which are not subject to his will and control. 
But within somewhat narrow limits exactly the same thing 
is effected, in the very earliest stage of savage society, and 
in a way that does not involve any belief in an individual 
stock-god, through the institution of totemism. In the 
totem stage of society each kinship or stock of savages 
believes itself to be physically akin to some natural kind 
of animate or inanimate things, most generally to some 
kind of animal. Every animal of this kind is looked upon 
as a brother, is treated with the same respect as a human 
clansman, and is believed to aid his human relations by a 
variety of friendly services.1 The importance of such a 
permanent alliance, based on the indissoluble bond of 
kinship, with a whole group of natural beings lying 
outside the sphere of humanity, is not to be measured by 
our knowledge of what animals can and cannot do. For 


1 See J. G. Frazer, T'otemism (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1887), p. 20 
sqq., reprinted in his monumental work Totemism and Exogamy moh 
1910), i. 1-87, with numerous additions, iv. 173-266. 


LECT. Il. THE JINN 125 


as their nature is imperfectly known, savage imagination 
clothes them with all sort of marvellous attributes; it is 
seen that their powers differ from those of man, and it is 
supposed that they can do many things that are beyond 
his scope. In fact they are invested with gifts such 
as we should call supernatural, and of the very same 
kind which heathenism ascribes to the gods—for example 
with the power of giving omens and oracles, of healing 
diseases and the lke. 

The origin of totemism is as much a problem as the 
origin of local gods. But it is highly improbable that 
the two problems are independent; for in both cases the 
thing to be explained is the emancipation of a society of 
men from the dread of certain natural agencies, by the 
establishment of the conception of a physical alliance and 
affinity between the two parts. It is a strong thing to 
suppose that a conception so remarkable as this, which is 
found all over the world, and which among savage races 
is invariably put in the totem form, had an altogether 
distinct and independent origin among those races which 
we know only in a state of society higher than savagery. 
The belief in local nature-gods that are also clan-gods may 
not be directly evolved out of an earlier totemism, but there 
can be no reasonable doubt that it 1s evolved out of ideas or 
usages which also find their expression in totemasm, and there- 
fore must go back to the most primitive stage of savage society. 
It is important to bear this in mind, if only that we may 
be constantly warned against explaining primitive religious 
institutions by conceptions that belong to a relatively 
advanced stage of human thought. But the comparison 
of totemism can do more than this negative service to our 
enquiry, for it calls our attention to certain habits of very 
early thought which throw light on several points in the 
conception of local sanctuaries. 


126 TOTEMS AND LECT. Ill 


In the system of totemism men have relations not with 
individual powers of nature, 2.¢. with gods, but with certain 
classes of natural agents. The idea is that nature, like 
mankind, is divided into groups or societies of things, 
analogous to the groups or kindreds of human society. As 
life analogous to human life is imagined to permeate all 
parts of the universe, the application of this idea may 
readily be extended to inanimate as well as to animate 
things. But the statistics of totemism show that the 
natural kinds with which the savage mind was most 
occupied were the various species of animals. It is with 
them especially that he has permanent relations of kinship 
or hostility, and round them are gathered in a peculiar 
degree his superstitious hopes and fears and observances. 
Keeping these facts before us, let us look back for a 
moment at the Arabian jimn. One difference between 
gods and jinn we have already noted; the gods have 
worshippers, and the yumn have not. But there is another 
difference that now forces itself on our attention; the gods 
have individuality, and the yoann have not. In the Arabian 
Nights we find jinn with individual names and distinctive 
personalities, but in the old legends the individual jinni 
who may happen to appear to a man has no more a 
distinct personality than a beast... He is only one of a 
group of beings which to man are indistinguishable from 

1 This may be illustrated by reference to a point of grammar which is of 
some interest and is not made clear in the ordinary books. The Arab says 
‘*the ghal appeared,” not ‘‘a ghal appeared,’’ just as David says ‘‘the lion 
came and the bear” (1 Sam. xvii. 34; Amos iij. 12, v. 19). The definite 
article is used because in such cases definition cannot be carried beyond the 
indication of the species. The individuals are numerically different, but 
qualitatively indistinguishable. This use of the article is sharply to be 


distinguished from such a case as Y°NF in 1 Sam. ix. 9, where the article is 
generic, and a general practice of men is spoken of ; and also from cases like 
p San (Gen. xiv. 13), DARN, OW Ores, etc., where the noun is really a 
verbal adjective implying an action, and the person is defined by the action 
ascribed to him. 


LECT. III. THE JINN 127 
one another, and which are regarded as making up a 
nation or clan of superhuman beings,! inhabiting a par- 
ticular locality, and united together by bonds of kinship 
and by the practice of the blood-feud, so that the whole 
clan acts together in defending its haunts from intrusion 
or in avenging on men any injury done to one of its 
members.” This conception of the communities of the jinn 
is precisely identical with the savage conception of the 
animal creation. Each kind of animal is regarded as an 
organised kindred, held together by ties of blood and the 
practice of blood revenge, and so presenting a united front 
when it is assailed by men in the person of any of its 
members. Alike in the Arabian superstitions about the 
jinn and in savage superstitions about animals it is this 
solidarity between all the members of one species, rather 
than the strength of the individual jinnz or animal, that 
makes it an object of superstitious terror. 

These points of similarity between the families of the 
jinn in Arabia and the families of animals among savages 
are sufficiently striking, but they do not nearly exhaust the 
case. We have already seen that the jinn usually appear 
to men in animal form, though they can also take the 
shape of men. This last feature, however, cannot be 
regarded as constituting a fundamental distinction between 


1 A curious local story about two clans of jinn, the B. Malik and the 
B. Shaisaban may be read in YAcit, iii. 476 sqqg. It is a genuine Bedouin 
tale, but like most later stories of the kind is not strictly mythical, but a free 
invention on the lines of current superstition. The oldest case of a clan of 
the jinn which is defined by a patronymic and not merely by a local name is 
perhaps that of the B. Ocaish, Nabigha, xxix. 10; cf. Ibn Hish. p. 282. 
But Tha lab makes the B. Ocaish a human race, and the words of Nabigha 
are quite consistent with this view. Jinn with personal names appear in 
several traditions of the prophet, but only, so far as I can see, in such as 
are manifestly ‘“ weak,” a.e. spurious. 

2 For the blood-feud of the jinn the classical example is that in Azraci, 
p. 261 (see below). But see also Damiri, s.v. arcam (vol. i. p. 23), where we 
learn that the slayer of a serpent-demon was likely to die or go mad, and 
this was held to be the revenge of the kin of the slain. Cf. Wellh. 149. 


128 THE JINN AND LECT. Ii 


them and ordinary animals in the mind of the Arabs, 
who believed that there were whole tribes of men who 
had the power of assuming animal form. On the whole 
it appears that the supernatural powers of the jinn do not 
differ from those which savages, in the totem stage, ascribe 
to wild beasts. They appear and disappear mysteriously, 
and are connected with supernatural voices and warnings, 
with unexplained sickness or death, just as totem animals 
are; they occasionally enter into friendly relations or even 
into marriages with men, but animals do the same in the 
legends of savages; finally, a madman is possessed by the 
jinn (majniin), but there are a hundred examples of the 
soul of a beast being held to pass into a man. The 
accounts of the jinn which we possess have come to us 
from an age when the Arabs were no longer pure savages, 
and had ceased to ascribe demoniac attributes to most 
animals; and our narrators, when they repeat tales about 
animals endowed with speech or supernatural gifts, assume 
as a matter of course that they are not ordinary animals 
but a special class of beings. But the stories themselves 
are just such as savages tell about real animals; the blood- 
feud between the Banu Sahm and the jinn of Dhu Tawa is 
simply a war between men and all creeping things, which, 
as in the Old Testament, have a common name? and are 
regarded as a single species or kindred; and the “wild 
beast of the wild beasts of the jinn,” which Taabbata 
Sharran slew in a night encounter and carried home under 
his arm, was as concrete an animal as one can well 
imagine.2 The proper form of the jim seems to be 

1 The widespread belief in this form of possession ought to be cited by 
commentators on Dan. iv. 16. 

2 Hanash=Heb. yrv, wir. For the story see Azraci, p. 261 s9q.; 
Wellh. p. 154. 


8 Agh. xviii. 210 sgq. Taabbata Sharran is an historical person, and the 
incident also is probably a fact. From the verses in which he describes his 


LECT. IIT. ANIMAL -KINDS 129 


always that of some kind of lower animal, or a monstrous 
composition of animal forms, as appears even in later 
times in the description of the four hundred and twenty 
species that were marshalled before Solomon. But the 
tendency to give human shape to creatures that can reason 
and speak is irresistible as soon as men pass beyond pure 
savagery, and just as animal gods pass over into anthropo- 
morphic gods, figured as riding on animals or otherwise 
associated with them, the jun begin to be conceived as 
manlike in form, and the supernatural animals of the 
original conception appear as the beasts on which they 
ride.2_ Ultimately the only animals directly and constantly 
identified with the jimnm were snakes and other noxious 
creeping things. The authority of certain utterances of 
the prophet had a share in this limitation, but it is 


foe it would seem that the supposed ghda/ was one of the feline carnivora. In 
Damiri, ii. 212, last line, a ghil appears in the form of a thieving cat. 

1 Cazwini, i. 872 sg. Even when they appear in the guise of men they 
have some animal attribute, e.g. a dog’s hairy paw in place of a hand, 
Damiri, ii, 213, 1. 22. 

* The stories in which the apparition takes this shape are obviously late. 
When a demon appears riding on a wolf or an ostrich to give his opinion on 
the merits of the Arabian poets (Agh. viii. 78, ix. 163, cited by Wellh. p. 
152), we have to do with literary fiction rather than genuine belief; and 
similarly the story of a ghil who rides on an ostrich in Cazwini, i. 373 sq., 
is only an edifying Moslem tale. These stories stand in marked contrast 
with the genuine old story in Maidani, i. 181, where the demon actually is 
an ostrich. The transition to the anthropomorphic view is seen in the story 
of Taabbata Sharran, where the monster ghi/ is called one of the wild beasts 
of the jinn, as if he were only their animal emissary, The riding beasts of 
the jinn are of many species; they include the jackal, t%e gazelle, the 
porcupine, and it is mentioned as an exceptional thing that the hare is not 
one of them (Sihah, s.v.; Rasmussen, Addit. p. 71, 1. 14), for which reason 
amulets are made from parts of its body (cf. ZDMG. xxxix. 329). Prof. De 
Goeje supplies me with an interesting quotation from Zamakhshari, Faic, i. 
71: ‘‘Ignorant people think that wild beasts are the cattle of the inn, and 
that a man who meets a wild beast is affected by them with mental disorder.” 
The paralysing effect of terror is assigned to supernatural agency. Cf. Arist. 
Mir. Ausc. 145: ‘‘In Arabia there is said to be a kind of hyena, which 
when it sees a beast first (¢.e. before being seen, Plato, Rep. i. p. 336 D; 
Theocr. xiv. 22; Virgil, Hcd. 9. 54) or treads on a man’s shadow, renders it 
or him incapable of voice and movement.” 


9 


130 THE JINN AND LECT. IIL 


natural enough that these creatures, of which men every- 
where have a peculiar horror and which continue to haunt 
and molest men’s habitations after wild beasts have been 
driven out into the desert, should be the last to be stripped 
of their supernatural character. 

It appears then that even in modern accounts jinn 
and various kinds of animals are closely associated, while 
in the older legends they are practically identified, and 
also that nothing is told of the jinn which savages do not 
tell of animals. Under these circumstances it requires a 
very exaggerated scepticism to doubt that the jinn, with all 
their mysterious powers, are mainly nothing else than more 
or less modernised representatives of animal kinds, clothed 
with the supernatural attributes inseparable from the 
savage conception of animate nature. A species of jinn 
allied by kinship with a tribe of men would be indistin- 
guishable from a totem kind, and instead of calling the 
jinn gods without worshippers, we may, with greater pre- 
cision, speak of them as potential totems without human 
kinsfolk. This view of the nature of the jinn helps us to 
understand the principle on which particular spots were 
viewed as their haunts. In the vast solitudes of the 
Arabian desert every strange sound is readily taken to be 
the murmuring of the jinn, and every strange sight to be 
a demoniac apparition. But when certain spots were fixed 
on as being pre-eminently haunted places, we must neces- 
sarily suppose that the sights and sounds that were deemed 
supernatural really were more frequent there than else- 
where. Mere fancy might keep the supernatural reputation 
of a place alive, but in its origin even the uncontrolled 

1 The snake is an object of superstition in all countries. For superstitions 
connected with ‘‘ creeping things” in general among the northern Semites, 
see Ezek. viii. 10. An oath by all the creeping things (hanash) between the 


two Harras appears in Ibn Hish. 10, |. 14, Tab. i. 911. 20, in a spurious 
imitation of the style of the heathen soothsayers. 


LECT. Ill. ANIMAL KINDS U3) 


imagination of the savage must have some point of contact 
with reality. Now the nocturnal sights and sounds that 
affray the wayfarer in haunted regions, and the stories of 
huntsmen who go up into a mountain of evil name and 
are carried off by the ghu/, point distinctly to haunted spots 
being the places where evil beasts walk by night. More- 
over, while the jinn frequent waste and desert places in 
general, their special haunts are just those where wild 
beasts gather most thickly—not the arid and lifeless 
desert, but the mountain glades and passes, the neigh- 
bourhood of trees and groves, especially the dense 
untrodden thickets that occupy moist places in the 
bottoms of the valleys.! 

These, it is true, are the places where the spontaneous 
life of nature is most actively exhibited in all its phases, 
and where therefore it may seem self-evident that man will 
be most apt to recognise the presence of divine or at least 
of superhuman powers. But so general an explanation as 
this is no explanation at all. Primitive religion was not 
a philosophical pantheism, and the primitive deities were 
not vague expressions for the principle of life in nature. 
What we have to explain is that the places where the life 
of nature is most intense—or rather some of these places— 
appeared to the primitive Semite to be the habitations, not 


1 All this, and especially the association of the jinn with natural thickets, 
is well brought out by Wellhausen, Heid.1, p. 136; p.150 sqq. ; though he offers 
no explanation of the reason why “the direct impression of divine life 
present in nature ” is associated with so bizarre a conception. In Southern 
Arabia natural jungles are still avoided as the haunts of wild beasts; no 
Arab, according to Wrede, willingly spends a night in the Wady Maisha, 
because its jungles are the haunts of many species of dangerous carnivora 
(Wrede’s Reise in Hadhramaut, ed. Maltzan, p. 131). The lions of Al-Shara 
and of the jungles of the Jordan valley (Zech. xi. 3) may be compared, and 
it is to be remembered that in savage life, when man’s struggle with wild 
beasts is one of life and death, the awe associated with such places is magni- 
fied tenfold. Even in the old Mohammedan literature no sharp line is 
drawn between danger from wild beasts and danger from jinn; see the 
Bcholion cited supra, p. 121, note. 


132 THE FAVOURITE HAUNTS LECT. IIL 


of abstract divine powers, but of very concrete and tangible 
beings, with the singular attributes which we have found 
the jinn to possess, and that this belief did not rest on 
mere general impressions, but was supported by reference 
to actual demoniac apparitions. The usual vague talk 
about an instinctive sense of the presence of the deity in 
the manifestations of natural life does not carry us a whit 
nearer the comprehension of these beliefs, but it is helpful 
to note that spots of natural fertility, untouched by man’s 
hand and seldom trodden by his foot, are the favoured 
haunts of wild beasts, that all savages clothe wild beasts 
and other animals with the very same supernatural 
qualities which the Arabs ascribe to the jinn, and that the 
Arabs speak of Baccar as a place famous for its demons in 
exactly the same matter-of-fact way in which they speak 
of Al-Shara and its famous lions. 

While the most marked attributes of the jinn are 
plainly derived from animals, it is to be remembered that 
the savage imagination, which ascribes supernatural powers 
to all parts of animate nature, extends the sphere of 
animate life in a very liberal fashion. Totems are not 
seldom taken from trees, which appear to do everything 
for their adherents that a totem animal could do. And 
indeed that trees are animate, and have perceptions, 
passions and a reasonable soul, was argued even by the 
early Greek philosophers on such evidence as their move- 
ments in the wind and the elasticity of their branches.! 
Thus while the supernatural associations of groves and 
thickets may appear to be sufficiently explained by the fact 
that these are the favourite lairs of wild beasts, it appears 
probable that the association of certain kinds of jinn with 
trees must in many cases be regarded as primary, the trees 


themselves being conceived as animated demoniac beings. — 


1 Aristotle, De plantis, i. p. 815; Plutarch, Place. Philos. v. 26. 


re ane ~ Seiya 


LECT, IIL OF THE JINN 133 
In Hadramaut it is still dangerous to touch the sensitive 
Mimosa, because the spirit that resides in the plant will 
avenge the injury. The same idea appears in the story 
of Harb b. Omayya and Mirdas b. Abi Amir, historical 
persons who lived a generation before Mohammed. When 
these two men set fire to an untrodden and tangled 
thicket, with the design to bring it under cultivation, the 
demons of the place flew away with doleful cries in the 
shape of white serpents, and the intruders died soon after- 
wards. The jinn it was believed slew them “ because they 
had set fire to their dwelling-place.”? Here the spirits of 
the trees take serpent form when they leave their natural 
seats, and similarly in Moslem superstition the jinn of the 
‘oshr and the hamata are serpents which frequent trees of 
these species. But primarily supernatural life and power 
reside in the trees themselves, which are conceived as 
animate and even as rational. Moslim b. ‘Ocba heard in a 
dream the voice of the gharcad tree designing him to the 
command of the army of Yazid against Medina® Or 
again the value of the gum of the acacia (samora) as an 
amulet is connected wth the idea that it is a clot of 
menstruous blood (haid), ae. that the tree is a woman.‘ 
And similarly the old Hebrew fables of trees that speak 
and act like human beings® have their original source in 
the savage personification of vegetable species. 


1 Wrede’s Reise, ed. Maltzan, p. 181. 
2 Agh. vi. 92, xx. 135 sq. 3 Agh. i. 14; Wellh. 205. 
4 Rasmussen, Add. p. 71; Zamakhshari, A sds, s.v. adm: New-born 


children’s heads were rubbed with the gum to keep away the jinn, just as 
they used to be daubed with the blood of the sacrifice called ‘acica (see my 
Kinship, p. 179 sq.). The blood of menstruation has supernatural quali- 
ties among all races, and the value of the hare’s foot as an amulet was 
connected with the belief that this animal menstruates (Rasm. ut sup.). 
The same thing was affirmed of the hyena, which has many magical 
qualities and peculiar affinities to man (Kinship, p. 231 sq.). 
® Judg. ix. 8 sqqg.; 2 Kings xiv. 9. 


134 SAVAGE VIEWS OF LECT. 111 


In brief it is not unjust to say that, wherever the 
spontaneous life of nature was manifested in an emphatic 
way, the ancient Semite saw something supernatural. But 
this is only half the truth; the other half is that the 
supernatural was conceived in genuinely savage fashion, 
and identified with the quasi-human life ascribed to the 
various species of animals or plants or even of inorganic 
things. 

For indeed certain phenomena of inorganic nature 
directly suggest to the primitive mind the idea of living 
force, and the presence of a living agent. Thus, to take a 
trivial example, the medizeval Arabs associate a definite 
class of demons with sand-whirlwinds and apply the name 
zawabt indifferently to these phenomena and to the jin 
that accompany or cause them.’ More important is the 
widespread belief that the stars move because they are 
alive, which underlies the planet and constellation worship 
of the Semites as of other ancient nations. Volcanic 
phenomena, in like manner, are taken for manifestations 
of supernatural life, as we see in the Greek myths of 
Typhoeus and in the Moslem legend of the crater of 
Barahit in Hadramaut, whose rumblings are held to be 
the groans of lost souls; probably also in the legend of 
the “fire of Yemen” in the valley of Darawan which in 
heathen times is said to have served as an ordeal, devour- 
ing the guilty and sparing the innocent;*® and again, 

1 See the lexx. and also Jahiz as cited by Vloten, Vien. Or. J. vii. 180. 
In several Arabian legends the eccentric movements of dust-whirlwinds are 
taken to be the visible signs of a battle between two clans of Jinn (Ibn Hish. 
ii, 42, Yacit, iii. 478; cf. Ibn Hish. 131 sg.). Cf. Goldz. Abh. i. 205, ii. eviii. 

* See Yacit, i. 598; De Goeje, Hadramaut, p. 20 (Rev. Col. Intern. 
1886). Does this belief rest on an early myth connected with the name of 
Hadramaut itself ? See Olshausen in Rhein. Mus. Ser. 3, vol. viii. p. 332 ; 
Sitzungsb. d. Berliner Ak. 1879, p. 751 sqq. 

3 Ibn Hisham, p. 17, with the scholia ; Bekri, p. 621; Yacit, iii. 470. 


Yacut describes the valley as accursed ; no plant grew there, no man could 
traverse it, and no bird fly across it. 


LECT. III. THE SUPERNATURAL 135 


mephitic vapours rising from fissures in the earth are 
taken to be potent spiritual influences! But remote 
phenomena like the movements of the stars, and exceptional 
phenomena like volcanoes, influence the savage imagination 
less than mundane and everyday things, which are not less 
mysterious to him and touch his common life more closely. 
It seems to be a mistake to suppose that distant and ex- 
ceptional things are those from which primitive man forms 
his general views of the supernatural; on the contrary he 
interprets the remote by the near, and thinks of heavenly 
bodies, for example, as men or animals, like the animate 
denizens of earth? Of all inanimate things that which 
has the best marked supernatural associations among the 
Semites is flowing (or, as the Hebrews say, “ living”) water. 
In one' of the oldest fragments of Hebrew poetry? the 
fountain is addressed as a living being; and sacred wells 
are among the oldest and most ineradicable objects of 
reverence among all the Semites, and are credited with 
oracular powers and a sort of volition by which they 
receive or reject offerings. Of course these superstitions 
often take the form of a belief that the sacred spring is the 
dwelling-place of beings which from time to time emerge 
from it in human or animal form, but the fundamental 


1 Tt may be conjectured that the indignation of the jinn at the violation 
of their haunts, as it appears in the story of Harb and Mirdas, would not 
have been so firmly believed in but for the fact that places such as the jinn 
were thought to frequent are also the haunts of ague, which is particularly 
active when land is cultivated for the first time. According to a Moham- 
medan tradition, the Prophet assigned the uplands (jals) to the believing 
jinn, and the deep lowlands (ghawr) to the unbelieving. The latter are in 
Arabia the homes of fever and plague (Damiri, i. 231). 

*See Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, chap. v. Among the Semites 
the worship of sun, moon and stars does not appear to have kad any 
great vogue in the earliest times. Among the Hebrews there is little 
trace of it before Assyrian influence became potent, and in Arabia it is 
by no means so prominent as is sometimes supposed ; cf. Wellhausen, p. 
209 sqq. 

3 Num. xxi. 17,18: ‘‘ Spring up, O well! sing ye toit!”’ See p. 183,n. 2. 


136 ORIGIN OF LECT. III. 


idea is that the water itself is the living organism of a 
demoniac life, not a mere dead organ. 

If now we turn from the haunts of the demons to 
sanctuaries proper, the seats of known and friendly powers 
with whom men maintain stated relations, we find that in 
their physical character the homes of the gods are precisely 
similar to those of the jsymn—mountains and thickets, 
fertile spots beside a spring or stream, or sometimes 
points defined by the presence of a single notable tree. 
As man encroaches on the wilderness, and brings these 
spots within the range of his daily life and walk, they 
lose their terror but not their supernatural associations, 
and the friendly deity takes the place of the dreaded 
demons. The conclusion to be drawn from this is obvious. 
The physical characters that were held to mark out a 
holy place are not to be explained by conjectures based 
on the more developed type of heathenism, but must be 
regarded as taken over from the primitive beliefs of savage 
man. The nature of the god did not determine the place 
of his sanctuary, but conversely the features of the 
sanctuary had an important share in determining the 
development of ideas as to the functions of the god. 
How this was possible we have seen in the conception 
of the local Baalim. The spontaneous luxuriance of 
marshy lands already possessed supernatural associations 
when there was no thought of bringing it under the 
service of man by cultivation, and when the rich valley 
pottoms were avoided with superstitious terror as the 
haunts of formidable natural enemies. How this terror 
was first broken through, and the transformation of 
certain groups of hostile demons into friendly and kindred 
powers was first effected, we cannot tell; we can only say 


1 For the details as to sacred waters among the Semites, see below in 
Lect. V. 


LECT. Il. HOLY PLACES 137 


that the same transformation is already effected, by means 
of totemism, in the most primitive societies of savages, and 
that there is no record of a stage in human society in 
which each community of men did not claim kindred 
and alliance with some group or species of the living 
powers of nature. But if we take this decisive step for 
granted, the subsequent development of the relation of the 
gods to the land follows by a kind of moral necessity, 
and the transformation of the vague friendly powers that 
haunt the seats of spontaneous natural life into the 
beneficent agricultural Baalim, the lords of the land 
and its waters, the givers of life and fertility to all 
that dwell on it, goes naturally hand in hand with the 
development of agriculture and the laws of agricultural 
society. 

I have tried to put this argument in such a way as 
may not commit us prematurely to the hypothesis that the 
friendly powers of the Semites were originally totems, ie. 
that the relations of certain kindred communities of men 
with certain groups of natural powers were established 
before these natural powers had ceased to be directly 
identified with species of plants and animals. But if my 
analysis of the nature of the jinn is correct, the conclusion 
that the Semites did pass through the totem stage can be 
avoided only by supposing them to be an exception to the 
universal rule, that even the most primitive savages have 
not only enemies but permanent allies (which at so early a 
stage in society necessarily means kinsfolk) among the 
non-human or superhuman animate kinds by which the 
universe is peopled. And this supposition is so extrava- 
gant that no one is likely to adopt it. On the other hand, 
it may be argued with more plausibility that totemism, if 
it ever did exist, disappeared when the Semites emerged 
from savagery, and that the religion of the race, in its 


138 SEMITIC LECT. IL 


higher stages, may have rested on altogether independent 
bases. Whether this hypothesis is or is not admissible 
must be determined by an actual examination of the 
higher heathenism. If its rites usages and beliefs really 
are independent of savage ideas, and of the purely savage 
conception of nature of which totemism is only one aspect, 
the hypothesis is legitimate; but it is not legitimate if the 
higher heathenism itself is permeated in all its parts by 
savage ideas, and if its ritual and institutions are through- 
out in the closest contact with savage ritual and institu- 
tions of totem type. That the latter is the true state of 
the case will I believe become overwhelmingly clear as we 
proceed with our survey of the phenomena of Semitic 
religion; and a very substantial step towards the proof that 
it is so has already been taken, when we have found that 
the sanctuaries of the Semitic world are identical in physical 
character with the haunts of the jinn, so that as regards 
their local associations the gods must be viewed as simply 
replacing the plant and animal demons.’ If this is so we 
can hardly avoid the conclusion that some of the Semitic 
gods are of totem origin, and we may expect to find the 
most distinct traces of this origin at the oldest sanctuaries. 
But we are not to suppose that every local deity will have 
totem associations, for new gods as well as new sanctuaries 
might doubtless spring up at a later stage of human 
progress than that of which totemism is _ characteristic. 
Even holy places that had an old connection with the 
demons may, in many instances, have come to be looked 
upon as the abode of friendly powers and fit seats of 
worship, after the demons had ceased to be directly 
identified with species of plants and animals, and had 


1 The complete development of this argument as it bears on the nature of 
the gods must be reserved for a later course of lectures ; but a provisional 
discussion of some points on which a difficulty may arise will be found 
below : see Additional Note A, Gods, Demons, and Plants or Animals. 


7. a i a i i i el i ee 


OT.11. $=  TOTEMISM 139 


Dr anny 


, uired quasi-human forms like the nymph and satyrs of 


» 


= Rate tele: 
Os fe ee a 


<i 


LECTURE 1V 


HOLY PLACES IN THEIR RELATION TO MAN 


I HAVE spoken hitherto of the physical characters of the 
sanctuary, as the haunt of divine beings that prove, in the 
last resort, to be themselves parts of the mundane universe, 
and so have natural connections with sacred localities; let 
us now proceed to look at the places of the gods in another 
aspect, to wit in their relation to men, and the conduct 
which men are called upon to observe at and towards them. 
The fundamental principle by which this is regulated is 
that the sanctuary is holy, and must not -be treated as a 
common place. The distinction between what is holy and 
what is common is one of the most important things in 
ancient religion, but also one which it is very difficult to 
grasp precisely, because its interpretation varied from age 
to age with the general progress of religious thought. To 
us holiness is an ethical idea. God, the perfect being, is 
the type of holiness; men are holy in proportion as their 
lives and character are godlike; places and things can be 
called holy only by a figure, on account of their associa- 
tions with spiritual things. This conception of holiness 
goes back to the Hebrew prophets, especially to Isaiah ; 
but it is not the ordinary conception of antique religion, 
nor does it correspond to the original sense of the Semitic 
words that we translate by “holy.” While it is not easy 
to fix the exact idea of holiness in ancient Semitic religion, 


it is quite certain that it has nothing to do with morality 
140 


LECT. Iv. HOLINESS 141 


and purity of life. Holy persons were such, not in virtue 
of their character but in virtue of their race, function, or 
mere material consecration; and at the Canaanite shrines 
the name of “holy” (masc. cédeshim, fem. cédeshoth) was 
specially appropriated to a class of degraded wretches, 
devoted to the most shameful practices of a corrupt 
religion, whose life, apart from its connection with the 
sanctuary, would have been disgraceful even from the 
standpoint of heathenism. But holiness in antique 
religion is not mainly an attribute of persons. The gods 
are holy,! and their ministers of whatever kind or grade 
are holy also, but holy seasons holy places and holy 
things, that is, seasons places and things that stand in a 
special relation to the godhead and are withdrawn by 
divine sanction from some or all ordinary uses, are equally 
to be considered in determining what holiness means. 
Indeed the holiness of the gods is an expression to which 
it is hardly possible to attach a definite sense apart from 
the holiness of their physical surroundings; it shows 
itself in the sanctity attached to the persons places 
things and times through which the gods and men come 
in contact with one another. The holiness of the sanctuary, 
which is the matter immediately before us, seems also to 
be on the whole the particular form of sanctity which 
lends itself most readily to independent investigation. 
Holy persons things and times, as they are conceived in 
antiquity, all presuppose the existence of holy places at 
which the persons minister, the things are preserved, and 
the times are celebrated. Nay the holiness of the god- . 
head itself is manifest to men, not equally at all places, 
but specially at’ those places where the gods are immediately 
present and from which their activity proceeds. In fact 


1 The Pheenicians speak of the ‘‘holy gods” (OwW"pPA dyn, CIS. No. 
8, 1. 9, 22), as the Hebrews predicate holiness of Jehovah, 


142 SACRED TRACTS LECT. Iv. 


the idea of holiness comes into prominence wherever the 
gods come into touch with men; it is not so much a thing 
that characterises the gods and divine things in them- 
selves, as the most general notion that governs their 
relations with humanity; and, as these relations are con- 
centrated at particular points of the earth’s surface, it is 
at these points that we must expect to find the clearest 
indications of what holiness means. 

At first sight the holiness of the sanctuary may seem 
to be only the expression of the idea that the sanctuary 
»elongs to the god, that the temple and its precincts are 
his homestead and domain, reserved for his use and that 
of his ministers, as a man’s house and estate are reserved 
for himself and his household. In Arabia, for example, 
where there were great tracts of sacred land, it was for- 
bidden to cut fodder, fell trees, or hunt game;? all the 


1 Wellh., Heidenthum, p. 106, and refs. there given to the ordinances laid 
down by Mohammed for the Haram of Mecca and the Hima of Wajj at Taif. 
In both cases the ordinance was a confirmation of old usage, and similar rules 
were laid down by Mohammed for his new Haram at Medina (Beladhori, p. 
7 sq.). At Mecca the law against killing or chasing animals did not apply to 
certain noxious creatures. The usually received tradition (Bokhari, ii. 195, of 
the Biilac vocalised ed.) names the raven aud the kite, the rat, the scorpion and 
the ‘‘ biting dog,” which is taken to cover the lion, panther, and wolf, and 
other carnivora that attack man (Mowatta, ii. 198). The serpent also was 
killed without scruple at Mina, which is within the Haram (Bokh. ii. 196, 
1. 1 sqq.). That the protection of the god is not extended to manslaying 
animals and to the birds of prey that molest the sacred doves is intelligible. 
The permission to kill vermin is to be compared with the story of the war 
between the Jinn and the B. Sahm (supra, p. 128). From the law against 
cutting plants the idhkhir (Andropigon schenanthus, or lemon-grass) was 
excepted by. Mohammed with some hesitation, on the demand of Al- Abbas, 
who pointed out that it was the custom to allow it to be cut for certain 
purposes. Here unfortunately our texts are obscure and vary greatly, but 
the variations all depend on the reading of two words of which one is either 
“smiths” or ‘‘ graves” and the other ‘‘ purification ” or ‘‘ roofs” of houses. 
In the Arabic the variations turn on small graphical points often left out 
by scribes. I take it that originally the two uses were either both prac- 
tical, ‘‘for the smiths and the (thatching of) house-roofs,” or both cere- 
monial, ‘‘ for entombment and the purification of houses.” As the lemon-grass 
was valued in antiquity for its perfume, and the fragrant harmal was also 


LECT. Iv. IN ARABIA 145 


in the definition of outsiders. Where the sacred tract was 
attached to the sanctuary of a town, it might be an open ques- 
tion whether the privileged religious community was limited 
to the townsmen or included a wider circle of the surrounding 
Bedouins who were accustomed to pay occasional homage at 
the shrine. On the other hand, a sanctuary that lay between 
the waters of several tribes and was equally visited by all 
would afford a common pasture-ground where enemies could 
meet and feed their flocks in security under the peace of 
the god. And finally, there seem to have been some 
Arabian sanctuaries that were neither attached to a town 
nor intertribal, but practically were in the hands of a single 
family of hereditary priests. At such sanctuaries all wor- 
shippers were in some sense outsiders, and the priests might 
claim the hima as a quasi-private domain for themselves 
and the god. All these cases seem to find more or less 
clear exemplification in the fragmentary details that have 
come down to us. At the hima of Wajj, attached to the 
sanctuary of al-Lat at Taif, the rules are practically identical 
with those at Mecca ; and when we observe that Mohammed 
confirmed these rules, in the interest of the inhabitants,1 
at the same time that he destroyed al-Lat and did away 
with the ancient sanctity of the spot, it is natural to infer 
that in other cases also the hima which he allowed to subsist 
as a communal pasture-ground round a village or town 
was originally a sacred tract, protected from encroachment 
by the fear of the god rather than by any civil authority. 
It is indeed plain that with such a property-law as has 
been described, and in the absence of any intertribal 
authority, religion was the only power, other than the high 


1 According to Bekri, p. 838, the treaty of Mohammed with the Thacif, 
or people of Taif, contained the clause wathacifun ahaccu ‘n-nadsi biwajjin, so 
that the confirmation of the old taboos was clearly meant to benefit them. 
And so it did ; for to cut down the wood is the quickest way to ruin a pasture- 
ground forcamels. See the interesting remarks of Floyerin Journ. R. A. Soe. 

Io 


146 HOLINESS AND LECT. IV 


hand, that could afford any security to a communal pasture, 
and we are not without evidence as to how this security 
was effected. The privileges of the Haram at Mecca and 
Medina are still placed under a religious sanction; on 
those who violated the latter Mohammed invoked the 
irrevocable curse of God and the angels and all men. The 
restrictions on the use of other himds have under Islam 
only a civil sanction, but the punishments appointed by 
Mohammed for those who violate them are manifestly 
based on old religious customs exactly parallel to the 
taboos prevalent among savage nations whose notions of 
property are still imperfectly developed. If a wood- 
cutter intruded on the hima of Wajj or Naci‘, he forfeited 
his hatchet and his clothes ; if a man unlawfully grazed his 
cattle on the hima of Jorash, the cattle were forfeit.2 To 
us these seem to be arbitrary penalties, attached by the 
will of the lawgiver to a breach of civil law; but to the 
Arabs, just emerged from heathenism, this was not so. We 
shall presently see that the ancient Semites, like other 
early races, deemed holiness to be propagated by physical 
contagion, so that common things brought into the sanctuary 
became holy and could not be safely withdrawn again to 
common use. Thus the forfeiture of clothes in Islamic 
law is only a continuation of the old rule, attested for 
the sanctuary of Mecca, that common raiment worn in the 
sacred place had to be cast off and left behind ;* while the 
forfeiture of cattle at Jorash follows the rule recorded 
for the sanctuary of Al-Jalsad, that cattle straying from 
outside into the hama become sacred and cannot be reclaimed. 
By students of primitive society these rules will at once be 
recognised as belonging to the sphere of ¢aboo and not of 


1 Beladhori, p. 8. 
2 Ibn Hisham, p. 918; Beladhori, p. 9; Ibn Hisham, p. 955. 
’ For the details on this point see below, Additional Note B. 


a a —, 


LECT. Iv. PROPERTY 147 


property-law ; those who are not familiar with the subject 
will find it further elucidated at the end of this volume in 
Additional Note B. 

Hitherto we have been speaking of a type of sanctuary 
older than the institution of property in land. But even 
where the doctrine of property is fully developed, holy 
places and holy things, except where they have been 
appropriated to the use of kings and priests, fall under 
the head of public rather than of private estate. Accord- 
ing to ancient conceptions, the interests of the god and 
his community are too closely identified to admit of a 
sharp distinction between sacred purposes and public pur- 
poses, and as a rule nothing is claimed for the god in 
which his worshippers have not a right to share. Even 
the holy dues presented at the sanctuary are not reserved 
for the private use of the deity, but are used to furnish 
forth sacrificial feasts in which all who are present partake. 
So too the sanctuaries of ancient cities served the purpose 
of public parks and public halls, and the treasures of the 
gods, accumulated within them, were a kind of state 
treasure, preserved by religious sanctions against pecula- 
tion and individual encroachment, but available for public 
objects in time of need. The Canaanites of Shechem took 
money from their temple to provide means for Abimelech’s 
enterprise, when they resolved to make him their king ; and 
the sacred treasure of Jerusalem, originally derived from 
the fruits of David’s campaigns, was used by his successors 
as a reserve fund available in great emergencies. On the 
whole, then, it is evident that the difference between holy 
things and common things does not originally turn on 
ownership, as if common things belonged to men and holy 
things to the gods. Indeed there are many holy things 
which are also private property, images, for example, and 
the other appurtenances of domestic sanctuaries. 


148 RULES OF LECT. IV 


Thus far it would appear that the rights of the gods in 
holy places and things fall short of ownership, because 
they do not exclude a right of user or even of property 
by man in the same things. But in other directions the 
prerogatives of the gods, in respect of that which is holy, 
go beyond what is involved in ownership. The approach to 
ancient sanctuaries was surrounded by restrictions which 
cannot be regarded as designed to protect the property of 
the gods, but rather fall under the notion that they will 
not tolerate the vicinity of certain persons (¢g. such as 
are physically unclean) and certain actions (eg. the shed- 
ding of blood). Nay, in many cases the assertion of a man’s 
undoubted rights as against a fugitive at the sanctuary 
is regarded as an encroachment on its holiness; justice 
cannot strike the criminal, and a master cannot recover his 
runaway slave, who has found asylum on holy soil. In 
the Old Testament the legal right of asylum is limited tc 
the case of involuntary homicide ;! but the wording of the 
law shows that this was a narrowing of ancient custom, 
and many heathen sanctuaries of the Phoenicians and 
Syrians retained even in Roman times what seems to have 
been an unlimited right of asylum.? At certain Arabian 


1 Ex, xxi. 13, 14. Here the right of asylum belongs to all altars, but 
it was afterwards limited, on the abolition of the local altars, to certain old 
sanctuaries—the cities of refuge (Deut. xix.). 

2 This follows especially from the account in Tacitus, Ann. iii. 60 sqq., of 
the inquiry made by Tiberius into abuses of the right of asylum. Among 
the holy places to which the right was confirmed after due investigation 
were Paphos and Amathus, both of them Phoenician sanctuaries. The 
asylum at the temple of Melcarth at Tyre is mentioned by Diodorus, xvii. 
41. 8. There was also a right of asylum at Daphne near Antioch (Strabo, 
xvi. 2. 6; 2 Mace. iv. 33), and many Phenician and Syrian towns are 
designated as asylums on their coins; see Head, Hist. Num., Index iv., 
under AZTAOD and IEPAZ AZTAOY. The Heracleum at the fishcuring 
station near the Canobic mouth of the Nile (Herod. ii. 113) may also be 
cited, for its name and place leave little doubt that it was a Phoenician 
temple. Here the fugitive slave was dedicated by being tattooed with 
sacred marks—a Semitic custom ; cf. Lucian, Dea Syria, lix., and Aghani, 


LECT. Iv. HOLINESS 149 


sanctuaries the god gave shelter to all fugitives without 
distinction, and even stray or stolen cattle that reached 
the holy ground could not be reclaimed by their owners.’ 
What was done with these animals is not stated; possibly 
they enjoyed the same liberty as the consecrated camels 
which the Arabs, for various reasons, were accustomed to 
release from service and suffer to roam at large. These camels 
seem to be sometimes spoken of as the property of the deity, 
but they were not used for his service. Their consecration 
was simply a limitation of man’s right to use them.? 

We have here another indication that the relations of 
holiness to the institution of property are mainly negative. 
Holy places and things are not so much reserved for the 
use of the god as surrounded by a network of restrictions 
and disabilities which forbid them to be used by men 
except in particular ways, and in certain cases forbid them 
to be used at all. As a rule the restrictions are such as 
to prevent the appropriation of holy things by men, and 


vil. 110, 1. 26, where an Arab patron stamps his clients with his camel 
mark. I owe the last reference to Prof. de Goeje. 

1 Yaciut, s.v. Jalsad and Fals; Wellhausen, pp. 52-54. 

2 See the verse from Ibn Hisham, p. 58, explained by Wellh. p. 107. 
The grounds on which Wellhausen concludes that these consecrated camels 
formed a sacred herd grazing on the holy pasture of the god are not quite 
satisfactory. The story in Mofaddal, Amthdl, p. 19, shows that sometimes 
at least they remained with their old herd; and this agrees best with 
the statement of the Arabian philologists. 

3 H.g. their milk might be drunk only by guests (Ibn Hisham, p. 58). 
Similarly, consecration sometimes meant no more than that men might eat 
the flesh but not women, or that only particular persons might eat of it 
(Sura, vi. 139 sq.). Above all, the consecrated camel might not be ridden, 
whence the name ha@mi. It is recorded on the authority of Laith (Lisan, 
xix. 341) that in certain cases the back of the camel was so injured that 
it could not be ridden ; but this certainly was not the universal rule, for 
in an emergency a man mounts a sacred camel to pursue robbers (Mofaddal, 
Amthal, p. 19; Freytag, Ar. Provy. i. 352). The immissio hirudinum in 
tergum (Rasmussen, Add. p. 70) is only a corruption of what Jaith tells. 


In Rasmussen’s text read cals! for cpl, and ye ee for ure va. 
in accordance with the Lisan, xix. 341, 1. 20 sq. (see We. 114 n. 1). 


150 RULES OF LECT, IV, 


sometimes they cancel existing rights of property. But 
they do so only by limiting the right of user, and in the 
case of objects like idols, which no one would propose to 
use except for sacred purposes, a thing may be holy and 
still be private property. From this point of view it 
would appear that common things are such as men have 
licence to use freely at their own good pleasure without 
fear of supernatural penalties, while holy things may be 
used only in prescribed ways and under definite restrictions, 
on pain of the anger of the gods. That holiness is essen- 
tially a restriction on the licence of man in the free use of 
natural things, seems to be confirmed by the Semitic roots 
used to express the idea. No stress can be laid on the 
root wip, which is that commonly used by the northern 
Semites, for of this the original meaning is very uncertain, 
though there is some probability that it implies “separation” 
or “withdrawal.” But the root o1n, which is mainly em- 
ployed in Arabic but runs through the whole Semitic field, 
undoubtedly conveys the notion of prohibition, so that a 
sacred thing is one which, whether absolutely or in certain 
relations, is prohibited to human use.1 The same idea of 
prohibition or interdiction associated with that of protection 
from encroachment is found in the root ‘on, from which 
is derived the word hima, detioting a sacred enclosure or 
temenos.” 

We have already found reason to think that in Arabia 


1 In Hebrew this root is mainly applied to such consecration as implies 
absolute separation from human use and association, 7.¢. the total destruction 
of an accursed thing, or in more modern times excommunication. Some- 
what similar is the sense of haraém in the Arabic form of oath ‘‘ ana hara- 
mumin,.., Agh. xix. 27. 18. 

* Hence perhaps the name of Hamath on the Orontes; Lagarde, Bildung 
der Nomina, p. 156. The primary sense of the root, as Néldeke has re- 
marked, is ‘‘to watch over,” whence in Palestinian Aramaic it comes to be the 
usual word for ‘‘to see,” while in Hebrew again the word 71D'N, ‘‘a wall,” 
is derived from it. 


LECT. IV _ HOLINESS 151 


the holiness of places is older than the institution of 
property in land, and the view of holiness that has just 
been set forth enables us to understand why it should be 
so. We have found that from the earliest times of savagery 
certain spots were dreaded and shunned as the haunts of 
supernatural beings. These, however, are not holy places 
any more than an enemy’s ground is holy; they are not 
hedged round by definite restrictions, but altogether avoided 
as full of indefinite dangers. But when men establish 
relations with the powers that haunt a spot, it is at once 
necessary that there should be rules of conduct towards 
them and their surroundings. These rules moreover have 
two aspects. On the one hand, the god and his worshippers 
form a single community—primarily, let us suppose, a 
community of kinship—and so all the social laws that 
regulate men’s conduct towards a clansman are applicable 
to their relations to the god. But, on the other hand, the 
god has natural relations to certain physical things, and 
these must be respected also; he has himself a natural life 
and natural habits in which he must not be molested. 
Moreover the mysterious superhuman powers of the god— 
the powers which we call supernatural—are manifested, 
according to primitive ideas, in and through his physical 
life, so that every place and thing which has natural 
associations with the god is regarded, if I may borrow a 
metaphor from electricity, as charged with divine energy 
and ready at any moment to discharge itself to the destruc- 
tion of the man who presumes to approach it unduly, 
Hence in all their dealings with natural things men must 
be on their guard to respect the divine prerogative, and 
this they are able to do by knowing and observing the 
rules of holiness, which prescribe definite restrictions and 
limitations in their dealings with the god and all natural 
things that in any way pertain to the god. Thus we see 


152 HOLINESS AND LECT. IV 
that holiness is not necessarily limited to things that are 
the property of the deity to the exclusion of men; it 
applies equally to things in which both gods and men have 
an interest, and in the latter case the rules of holiness are 
directed to regulate man’s use of the holy thing in 
such a way that the godhead may not be offended or 
wronged. 

Rules of holiness in the sense just explained, we. a 
system of restrictions on man’s arbitrary use of natural 
things, enforced by the dread of supernatural penalties,’ are 
found among all primitive peoples. It is convenient to 
have a distinct name for this primitive institution, to mark 
it off from the later developments of the idea of holiness 
in advanced religions, and for this purpose the Polynesian 
term taboo has been selected.2 The field covered by taboos 
among savage and half-savage races is very wide, for there 
is no part of life in which the savage does not feel himself 
to be surrounded by mysterious agencies and recognise the 
need of walking warily. Moreover all taboos do not belong 
to religion proper, that is, they are not always rules of 
conduct for the regulation of man’s contact with deities 
that, when taken in the right way, may be counted on as 
friendly, but rather appear in many cases to be precautions 
against the approach of malignant enemies—against contact 
with evil spirits and the like. Thus alongside of taboos 
that exactly correspond to rules of holiness, protecting the 
inviolability of idols and sanctuaries, priests and chiefs, and 
generally of all persons and things pertaining to the gods 
and their worship, we find another kind of taboo which in 

1 Sometimes by civil penalties also. For in virtue of its solidarity the 
whole community is compromised by the impiety of any one of its members, 
and is concerned to purge away the offence. 

2 A good account of taboo, with references to the best sources of informa: 


tion on the subject, is given by Mr. J. G. Frazer in the 9th ed. of the Hncyel. 
Britan. vol, xxiii. p. 15 sqq. 


LECT. Iv. TABOO 153 


the Semitic field has its parallel in rules of uncleanness. 
Women after child-birth, men who have touched a dead 
body and so forth, are temporarily taboo and separated from 
human society, just as the same persons are unclean in 
Semitic religion. In these cases the person under taboo is 
not regarded as holy, for he is separated from approach to 
the sanctuary as well as from contact with men; but his 
act or condition is somehow associated with supernatural 
dangers, arising, according to the common savage explana- 
tion, from the presence of formidable spirits which are 
shunned like an infectious disease. In most savage societies 
no sharp line seems to be drawn between the two kinds of 
taboo just indicated, and even in more advanced nations the 
notions of holiness and uncleanness often touch. Among 
the Syrians, for example, swine’s flesh was taboo, but it was 
an open question whether this was because the animal was 
holy or because it was unclean.1 But though not precise, 
the distinction between what is holy and what is unclean 
is real; in rules of holiness the motive is respect for the 
gods, in rules of uncleanness it is primarily fear of an 
unknown or hostile power, though ultimately, as we see in 
the Levitical legislation, the law of clean and unclean may 
be brought within the sphere of divine ordinances, on the 
view that uncleanness is hateful to God and must be 
avoided by all that have to do with Him. 

The fact that all the Semites have rules of uncleanness 
as well as rules of holiness, that the boundary between the 
two is often vague, and that the former as well as the 
latter present the most startling agreement in point of 
detail with savage taboos,? leaves no reasonable doubt as 
to the origin and ultimate relations of the idea of holiness. 


1 Lucian, Dea Syr. liv.; cf. Antiphanes, ap. Athen. iii. p. 95 [Meineke, 
Fr. Com. Gr. iii. 68). 
2 See Additional Note B, Holiness, Uncleanness, and Taboo, 


154 HOLINESS AND LECT. Iv. 


On the other hand, the fact that the Semites—or at least 
the northern Semites—distinguish between the holy and the 
unclean, marks a real advance above savagery. All taboos 
are inspired by awe of the supernatural, but there is a 
great moral difference between precautions against the 
invasion of mysterious hostile powers and precautions 
founded on respect for the prerogative of a friendly god. 
The former belong to magical superstition—the barrenest 
of all aberrations of the savage imagination—which, being 
founded only on fear, acts merely as a bar to progress and 
an impediment to the free use of nature by human energy 
and industry. But the restrictions on individual licence 
which are due to respect for a known and friendly power 
allied to man, however trivial and absurd they may appear 
to us in their details, contain within them germinant 
principles of social progress and moral order. To know 
that one has the mysterious powers of nature on one’s side 
so long as one acts in conformity with certain rules, gives 
a man strength and courage to pursue the task of the 
subjugation of nature to his service. To restrain one’s 
individual licence, not out of slavish fear, but from respect 
for a higher and beneficent power, is a moral discipline of 
which the value does not altogether depend on the reason- 
ableness of the sacred restrictions; an English schoolboy is 
subject to many unreasonable taboos, which are not without 
value in the formation of character. But finally, and 
above all, the very association of the idea of holiness with 
a beneficent deity, whose own interests are bound up with 
the interests of the community, makes it inevitable that 
the laws of social and moral order, as well as mere external 
precepts of physical observance, shall be placed under the 
sanction of the god of the community. Breaches of social 
order are recognised as offences against the holiness of the 
deity, and the development of law and morals is made 


LECT, Iv. TABOO 155 


possible, at a stage when human sanctions are still wanting, 
or too imperfectly administered to have much power, by 
the belief that the restrictions on human licence which 
are necessary to social well-being are conditions imposed 
by the god for the maintenance of a good understanding 
between himself and his worshippers. 

As every sanctuary was protected by rigid taboos it 
was important that its site and limits should be clearly 
marked. From the account already given of the origin of 
holy places, it follows that in very many cases the natural 
features of the spot were sufficient to distinguish it. A 
fountain with its margin of rich vegetation, a covert of 
jungle haunted by lions, a shaggy glade on the mountain- 
side, a solitary eminence rising from the desert, where 
toppling blocks of weather-beaten granite concealed the 
dens of the hyzna and the bear, needed only the support 
of tradition to bear witness for themselves to their own 
sanctity. In such cases it was natural to draw the border 
of the boly ground somewhat widely, and to allow an 
ample verge on all sides of the sacred centre. In Arabia, 
as we have seen, the Aima sometimes enclosed a great tract 
of pasture land roughly marked off by pillars or cairns, 
and the haram or sacred territory of Mecca extends for 
some hours’ journey on almost every side of the city. 
The whole mountain of Horeb was sacred ground, and so 
probably was Mount Hermon, for its name means “ holy,” 
and the summit and slopes still bear the ruins of many 
temples! In like manner Renan concludes from the 
multitude of sacred remains along the course of the 
Adonis, in the Lebanon, that the whole valley was a 
kind of sacred territory of the god from whom the river 
had its name.2 In a cultivated and thickly-peopled land 


1 For the sanctity of Hermon see further Reland, Palestina, p. 323. 
® Renan, Mission de Phénicie (1864), p. 295. 


* 


* 


156 THE LIMITS OF LECT. IV 


it was difficult to maintain a rigid rule of sanctity over 
a wide area, and strict taboos were necessarily limited to 
the temples and their immediate enclosures, while in a 
looser sense the whole city or land of the god’s wor- 
shippers was held to be the god’s land and to participate 
in his holiness. Yet some remains of the old sanctity 
of whole regions survived even in Syria to a late date. 
Iamblichus, in the last days of heathenism, still speaks 
of Mount Carmel as “sacred above all mountains and 
forbidden of access to the vulgar,” and here Vespasian 
worshipped at the solitary altar, embowered in inviolable 
thickets, to which ancient tradition forbade the adjuncts 
of temple and image.! 

The taboos or restrictions applicable within the wide 
limits of these greater sacred tracts have already been 
touched upon. The most universal of them was that men 
were not allowed to interfere with the natural life of the 
spot. No blood might be shed and no tree cut down; an 
obvious rule whether these living things are regarded as 
the protected associates of the god, or—which perhaps was 
the earlier conception—as participating in the divine life. 
In some cases all access to the Arabian hima was forbidden, 
as at the sacred tract marked off round the grave of Ibn 
Tofail.2 For with the Arabs grave and sanctuary were 


1 Tamblichus, Vit. Pyth. iii. (15); Tacitus, Hist. ii. 78. From 1 Kings 
Xviii. it would be clear, apart from the classical testimonies, that Carmel 
was a sacred mountain of the Phenicians. It had also an altar of Jehovah, 
and this made it the fit place for the contest between Jehovah-worship and 
Baal-worship. Carmel is still clothed with thickets as it was in Old Testament 
times (Amos i. 2; Mic, vii. 14 ; Cant. vii. 5); and Amos ix. 3, Mic. vii. 14, 
where its woods appear as a place of refuge, do not receive their full force till 
we combine them with Iamblichus’s notice that the mountain was an zGaro», 
where the flocks, driven up into the forest in autumn to feed on the leaves 
(as is still done, Thomson, Land and Book [1860], pp. 204 sq., 485), were 
inviolable, and where the fugitive found a sure asylum. The sanctity of 
Carmel is even now not extinct, and the scene at the Festival of Elijah, 
described by Seetzen, ii. 96 sq., is exactly like an old Canaanite feast. 

2 Agh. xv. 189; Wellh. p. 184. This is not the place to go into the 


LECT. Iy. THE SANCTUARY 157 
kindred ideas, and famous chiefs and heroes were honoured * 
by the consecration of their resting-place. But an absolute 
exclusion of human visitors, while not unintelligible at a 
tomb, could hardly be maintained at a sanctuary which 
contained a place of worship, and we have seen that some 
himds were open pastures, while the haram at Mecca even 
contained a large permanent population! The tendency 
was evidently to a gradual relaxation of burdensome restric- 
tions, not necessarily because religious reverence declined, 
but from an increasing confidence that the god was his 
servants’ well-wisher and did not press his prerogative 
unduly. Yet the “jealousy” of the deity—an idea 
familiar to us from the Old Testament—was never lost 
sight of in Semitic worship. In the higher forms of 
religion this quality, which nearly corresponds to self- 
respect and the sense of personal dignity in a man, readily 
lent itself to an ethical interpretation, so that the jealousy 
of the deity was mainly conceived to be indignation against 
wrong-doing, as an offence against the honour of the 
divine sovereign; but in savage times the personal 


general question of the worship of ancestors. See Wellhausen, ut supra ; 
Goldziher, Culte des Ancétres chez les Arabes (Paris, 1885), and Muh. Studien, 
p- 229 sgg.; and some remarks, perhaps too sceptical, in my Kinship, 
p. 20, n. 2. 

1 Yacit, iii. 790 (We. p. 105 sq., cf. p. 43), says that marks, called “‘ scare- 
crows” (akhyila), were set up to show that a place was a hima, and must not 
be approached. But to ‘‘approach” a forbidden thing (cariba) is the 
general word for violating a taboo, so the expression ought not perhaps to 
be pressed too closely. The Greek z@aroy is also used simply in the sense of 
inviolable (along with devas). It is notable, however, that in the same 
passage Yaciit tells us that two of the marks that defined the hima of Faid 
were called ‘‘ the twin sacrificial stones” (ghariydn). He did not know the 
ritual meaning of ghariy, and may therefore include them among the 
akhyila by mere inadvertence. But if the place of sacrifice really stood on the 
border of the sacred ground, the inevitable inference is that the worshippers 
were not allowed to enter the enclosure, This would be parallel to the 
sacrifice in Ex. xxiv. 4, where the altar is built outside the limits of 
Sinai, and the people are not allowed to approach the mountain. 

* This, it will be remembered, is the idea on which Anselm’s theory of the 
atonement is based, 


158 THE JEALOUSY LECT. IVY. 


diginity of the god, like that of a great chief, asserts 
itself mainly in punctilious insistence on a complicated 
etiquette that surrounds his place and person. Naturally 
the strictness of the etiquette admits of gradations. 
When the god and his worshippers live side by side, 
as in the case of Mecca, or still more in cases where 
the idea of holiness has been extended to cover the 
whole land of a particular religion, the general laws 
of sacred observance, applicable in all parts of the holy 
land, are modified by practical considerations. Strict 
taboos are limited to the sanctuary (in the narrower 
sense) or to special seasons and occasions, such as 
religious festivals or the time of war; in ordinary life 
necessary actions that constitute a breach of ceremonial 
holiness merely involve temporary uncleanness and some 
ceremonial act of purification, or else are condoned alto- 
gether provided they are done in a particular way. Thus 
in Canaan, where the whole land was holy, the hunter was 
allowed to kill game if he returned the life to the god by 
pouring it on the ground; or again the intercourse of the 
sexes, which was strictly forbidden at temples and to 
warriors on an expedition, entailed in ordinary life only 
a temporary impurity, purged by ablution or fumigation.! 
But in all this care was taken not to presume on the 
prerogative of the gods, or trench without permission on 
the sanctity of their domain; and in particular, fresh 
encroachments on untouched parts of nature—the breaking 
up of waste lands, the foundation of new cities, or even 
the annual cutting down of corn or gathering in of the 
vintage—were not undertaken without special precautions 
to propitiate the divine powers. It was felt that such en- 
croachments were not without grave danger, and it was 
often thought necessary to accompany them with expiatory 
1 See Additional Note C, Taboos on the Intercourse of the Sexes. 


LECT. tv. OF THE GOD 159 


ceremonies of the most solemn kind Within the god’s 
holy land all parts of life are regulated with constant 
regard to his sanctity, and so among the settled Semites, 
who live on Baal’s ground, religion entered far more 
deeply into common life than was the case among the Arabs, 
where only special tracts were consecrated land and the wide 
desert was as yet unclaimed either by gods or by men. 


Some of the restrictions enforced at ancient sanctuaries 
have already been touched upon; but it will repay us to 
look at them again more closely under the new light which 
falls upon the subject as soon as we recognise that all 
such restrictions are ultimately of the nature of taboos. 
The simplest and most universal of these taboos is that 
which protects the trees of the temenos or hima, and all 
the natural life of the spot. In the more advanced forms 
of Semitic religion the natural wood of the sanctuary is 
sometimes represented as planted by the god,? which would 


1 The details, so far as they are concerned with the yearly recurring ritual 
of harvest and vintage, belong to the subject of Agricultural Feasts, and 
must be reserved for a future course of lectures. The danger connected with 
the breaking up of waste lands is illustrated for Arabia by the story of 
Harb and Mirdas (supra, p. 1383). Here the danger still comes from the 
jinn of the place, but even where the whole land already belongs to a 
friendly deity, precautions are necessary when man lays his hand for the 
first time on any of the good things of nature. Thus the Hebrews ate the 
fruit of new trees only in the fifth year; in the fourth year the fruit was 
consecrated to Jehovah, but the produce of the first three years was ‘‘ uncir- 
cumcised,” 7.e. taboo, and might not be eaten at all (Lev. xix. 23 sqqg.). A 
similar idea underlies the Syrian traditions of human sacrifice at the founda- 
tion of cities (Malalas, Bonn ed. pp. 37, 200, 203), which are not the less 
instructive that they are not historically true. In Arabia the local jinn or 
earth-demons (ahi al-ard) are still propitiated by sprinkling the blood 
of a sacrifice when new land is broken up, a new house built, or a new well 
opened (Doughty, i. 136, ii. 100, 198). Kremer, Studien, p. 48, cites a 
passage from Abii “Obaida, ap. Damiri, i. 241, which shows that such 
sacrifices to the jinn follow an ancient custom, forbidden by the prophet. 

* The cypresses at Daphne were planted by Heracles (Malalas, p. 204) ; 
of, Pa. civ. 16. 


160 RESTRICTIONS AT LECT. IV. 


of course give him a right of property in it. But for the 
most part the phenomena of tree and grove worship, of 
which we shall learn more in Lect. V., point to a more 
ancient conception, in which the vegetation of the sanctuary 
is conceived as actually instinct with a particle of divine 
life. Equally widespread, and to all appearance equally 
primitive, is the rule exempting the birds, deer and other 
game of the sanctuary from molestation These wild 
creatures must have been regarded as the guests or clients 

rather than the property of the god, for Semitic law 
- recognises no property in fere nature. But in the oldest 
law the client is only an artificial kinsman, whose rights 
are constituted by a ceremony importing that he and his 
patron are henceforth of one blood; and thus it is probable 
that, in the beginning, the beasts and birds of the 
sanctuary, as well as its vegetation, were conceived as 
holy because they partook of the pervasive divine life. 
We may conceive the oldest sanctuaries as charged in all 
their parts and pertinents with a certain supernatural 
energy. This is the usual savage idea about things that - 
are taboo, and even in the higher religions the process of 
subsuming all taboos under the conception of the holiness 
of the personal god is always slow and often imperfectly 
carried out. In particular there is one main element 
in the doctrine of taboo, perfectly irrational from the 
standpoint of any religion that has clear views as to the 


1The cases of Mecca and Wajj have already been cited ; for the former 
compare the verses in Ibn Hisham, p. 74, ll. 10, 11. Birds found sanctuary 
at the temple of Jerusalem (Ps. lxxxiv. 3). At Curium in Cyprus, where 
religion is full of Semitic elements, dogs did not venture to follow game into 
the sacred grove, but stood outside barking (Aelian, NV. A. xi. 7), and the 
same belief prevailed in the Middle Ages with regard to the mosque and 
tomb of Siddica (Al-Shajara) in the mountains E. of Sidon (Mocaddasi, 
p. 188). In the sacred island of Icarus in the Persian Gulf the wild goats 
and gazelles might be taken for sacrifice only (Arrian, vii. 20) ; or, according 
to Aelian (NV. A. xi. 9), the huntsman had to ask permission of the goddess ; 
otherwise the hunt proved vain and a penalty was incurred. 


LECT. Iv ANCIENT SANCTUARIES 161 


personality of the gods, which was never eliminated from 
the Semitic conception of holiness, and figures even in the 
ritual parts of the Old Testament. Holiness, like taboo, is 
conceived as infectious, propagating itself by physical con- 
tact. To avoid complicating the present argument by a 
multitude of details, I reserve the full illustration of this 
matter for a note, and confine myself to the observation 
that even in Hebrew ritual common things brought into 
contact with things very sacred are themselves “ sanctified,” 
so that they can be no longer used for common purposes. 
In some cases it is provided that this inconvenient sanctity 
may be washed out and purged away by a ceremonial 
process; in others the consecration is indelible, and the 
thing has to be destroyed. In the Old Testament these 
are mere fragmentary survivals of old rules of sanctity ; 
and the details are to some extent peculiar. The idea that 
things which fall under a taboo, and so are withdrawn 
from common use, must be destroyed, is far more prominent 
among the Hebrews than among other Semites; but the 
' general principle applies to all Semitic religions, and at 
once explains most of the special taboos applicable to 
sanctuaries, ¢.g. the right of asylum, the forfeiture of camels 
that stray on holy ground, and the Meccan rule that 
strangers who worship at the Caaba in their common dress 
must leave it behind them at the door of the sanctuary. 
All such rules are governed by the principle that common 
things brought into contact with the holy place become 
holy and inviolable, like the original pertinents of the 
sanctuary. Naturally this principle admits of many 
varieties in detail. Holiness acquired by contact is not 
so indelible as inborn sanctity. In many rituals it can 
be removed from clothes by washing them, and from the 
person of a worshipper by ablution. As a rule the con- 


1 See Additional Note B, Holiness, Uncleanness, and Taboo, 
It 


162 THE JEALOUSY LECT. Iv. 


secration of persons by holy things is only temporary; thus 
the Syrian who touched a dove, the holiest of birds, was 
taboo for a single day, and at most ancient asylums the 
fugitive was no longer inviolable when he left the sacred 
precincts (Num. xxxv. 26 sq.). 

The ultimate sanction of these rules lay in the intrinsic 
power of holy things to vindicate themselves against en- 
croachment; or according to the higher heathenism in the 
jealousy of the personal god, who resents all undue violation 
of his environment. But when the rules were once estab- 
lished, they tended to maintain themselves without the 
constant intervention of supernatural sanctions by the 
action of ordinary social forces. A bold man might 
venture to violate a taboo and take his risk of super- 
natural danger; but if his comrades were not equally bold 
they would immediately shun him lest the danger should 
spread to them.! On this principle most ancient societies 
attached the penalty of outlawry or death to impious 
offences, such as the violation of holy things, without 
waiting for the god to vindicate his own cause.2 The 
argument of Joash, “If he be a god, let him plead for 
himself, because one hath cast down his altar,’ does not 
commend itself to a firm faith. The deity is not put to 
such a proof till his power begins to be doubted? The 


1 Cf. the case of Achan, Josh. vi. 18, vii. 1, 11 sg., where Achan’s breach 
of a taboo involves the whole host. 

2 Cf. Lev. xx. 4,5; if the people of the land do not slay the impious 
person, Jehovah will destroy him and all his clan. In the Pentateuch it is 
sometimes difficult to decide whether the penalty invoked on impious 
offences is civil or supernatural, ¢.g. Lev. xvii. 4, xix. 8, 

3 Judg. vi. 31. An Arabian parallel in Ibn Hishim, p. 803 sg.— 
‘Amr’s domestic idol has been repeatedly defiled by unknown Moslems, 
At length the owner girds the god with a sword, and bids him defend him- 
self if he is good for anything. Of course conversion follows. Similarly in 
Yacit, iii. 912 sg., a daring man reclaims a stolen camel from the sanctuary 
of Al-Fals. A bystander exclaims, ‘‘ Wait and see what will happen to him 
this very day !”; when several days pass and nothing happens, he renounces 


Me ae 4 ‘ yo, 


LECT. IV. OF THE GOD 163 


principle that it is not safe to wait till the god vindicates 
his own holiness, has enormous historical importance as 
one of the chief bases of early criminal law. In the oldest 
type of society impious acts or breaches of taboo were the 
only offences treated as crimes; eg. there is no such 
crime as theft, but a man can save his property from 
invasion by placing it under a taboo, when it becomes an 
act of impiety to touch it. Among the Hebrews such 
taboos are created by means of a curse (Judg. xvii. 2), and 
by the same means a king can give validity to the most 
unreasonable decrees (1 Sam. xiv. 24 sgq.). But unreason- 
able taboos, as we see in the case of Saul and Jonathan, 
are sure to be evaded in the long run because public 
opinion goes against them, whereas taboos that make for 
the general good and check wrong-doing are supported and 
enforced by the community, and ultimately pass into laws 
with a civil sanction. But no ancient society deemed its 
good order to be sufficiently secured by civil sanctions 
alone; there was always a last recourse to the curse, the 
ordeal, the oath of probation at the sanctuary—all of them 
means to stamp an offender with the guilt of impiety and 


idols and becomes a Christian. I suspect that in Judg. vi. the original 
text expressed a similar belief that the god’s vengeance must fall on the very 
day of the offence. The clause “Pan 3y nioyv 1% a WwWRN gives a very 
unsuitable sense. But the true Septuagint text (which in this book is 
better represented by A than by B) indicates a reading 13 for 1). Accepting 
this and reading n° (which in the old orthography is not distinguished 
for MD\) we get good sense: ‘‘The man who strives with the Baal dies 
before (the next) morning.” The common belief was that supernatural 
judgments came swiftly on the offence, or not at all. That Jehovah does 
not overlook sin because He is long-suffering and gives time for repentance 
(Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7), is one of the distinctive points of O. 'T. doctrine which the 
prophets had special difficulty in impressing on their hearers. 

11 believe that in early society (and not merely in the very earliest) we 
may safely affirm that every offence to which death or outlawry is attached 
was primarily viewed as a breach of holiness ; e.g. murder within the kin, 
and incest, are breaches of the holiness of tribal blood, which would be x 
supernaturally avenged if men overlooked them. 


164 EFFECTS OF TABOO LECT. IV. 


bring him under the direct judgment of the supernatural 
powers. 

Very noteworthy, in this connection, is the repre- 
sentation in Deut. xxvii., Josh. vill. 30 sqqg., according to 
which the Israelites, on their first entry into Canaan, 
placed a number of the chief heads of public morality 
under the protection of a solemn taboo by a great act of 
public cursing. I use the word taboo deliberately as 
implying a more mechanical sequence of sin and punish- 
ment than we associate with the idea of divine judgment ; 
see the description of the operation of the curse in 
Zech. v. 14.4 


1 Among the Arabs the operation of a curse is purely mechanical ; if a 
man falls on his face it may pass over him; see Wellhausen!, p. 126. For 
the oath of purgation among the Arabs, see Kinship, p. 64 and note ; among 
the Hebrews, Deut. xxi. 7 and Num. vy. 11 sg., where the connection with 
very primitive ideas of taboo is unmistakable (cf. p. 180, infra). A late Syriac 
survival of the use of a curse to protect (or perhaps to create) an exclusive 
right of property (as in Judg. xvii. 2) is found in Jacob of Edessa, Qu. 47, 
‘concerning a priest who writes a curse and hangs it on a tree that no man 
may eat of the fruit.” Various examples of the operation of a curse to 
vindicate rights of property, etc., in the lawless society of Arabia before 
Islam are collected in Div. Hodh. No. 245, in the form of anecdotes of the 
Times of Ignorance related to the Caliph*OmarI. ‘Omar observes that 
God granted temporal judgments, in answer to prayer, when there was no 
knowledge of a future state ; but in Islam divine retribution is reserved for 
the day of judgment. 


| 
: 


LECTURE V 


SANCTUARIES, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL, HOLY WATERS, 
TREES, CAVES, AND STONES 


We have seen that holiness admits of degrees, and that 
within a sacred land or tract it is natural to mark off an 
inner circle of intenser holiness, where all ritual restrictions 
are stringently enforced, and where man feels himself to be 
nearer to his god than on other parts even of holy ground. 
Such a spot of intenser holiness becomes the sanctuary or 
place of sacrifice, where the worshipper approaches the god 
with prayers and gifts, and seeks guidance for life from 
the divine oracle. As holy tracts in general are the 
regions haunted by divine powers, so the site of the 
sanctuary par excellence, or place of worship, is a spot where 
the god is constantly present in some visible embodiment, 
or which has received a special consecration by some 
extraordinary manifestation of deity. For the more 
developed forms of cultus a mere vague hima does not 
suffice; men require a special point at which they may 
come together and do sacrifice with the assurance that 
the god is present at the act. In Arabia, indeed, it seems 
to be not incredible that certain sacrifices were simply 
laid on sacred ground to be devoured by wild beasts. 
But even in Arabia the hima usually, probably always, 
contained a fixed point where the blood of the offering was 
directly presented to the deity by being applied to sacred 


stones, or where a sacred tree was hung with gifts. In 
165 


166 SACRED FOUNTAINS LECT. V. 


the ordinary forms of heathenism, at any rate, it was 
essential that the worshipper should bring his offering 
into the actual presence of the god, or into contact with 
the symbol of that presence.! 

The symbol or permanent visible object, at and through 
which the worshipper came into direct contact with the 
god, was not lacking in any Semitic place of worship, but 
had not always the same form, and was sometimes a 
natural object, sometimes an artificial erection. The usual 
natural symbols are a fountain or a tree, while the 
ordinary artificial symbol is a pillar or pile of stones; 
but very often all three are found together, and this was 
the rule in the more developed sanctuaries, particular 
sacred observances being connected with each. 

The choice of the natural symbols, the fountain and 
the tree, is no doubt due in part to the fact that the 
favourite haunts of animate life, to which a superstitious 
reverence was attached, are mainly found beside wood and 
running water. But besides this we have found evidence 
of the direct ascription to trees and living waters of a life 
analogous to man’s, but mysterious and therefore awful.” 
To us this may seem to be quite another point of view; 
in the one case the fountain or the tree merely marks 
the spot which the deity frequents, in the other it is 
the visible embodiment of the divine presence. But 
the primitive imagination has no difficulty in combining 
different ideas about the same holy place or thing. The 
gods are not tied to one form of embodiment or mani- 
festation; for, as has already been observed, some sort 
of distinction between life and the material embodiment 

1 This rule is observed even when the god is a heavenly body. The 
sacrifices of the Saracens to the morning star, described by Nilus, were cele- 
brated when that star rose, and could not be made after it was lost to sight 


on the rising of the sun (Nii op. quedam [Paris, 1639], pp. 28, 117). 
4 Supra, p. 135 sqq. 3 Supra, pp. 86, 87. 


LECT. VY. IN ARABIA 167 


of life is suggested to the rudest peoples by phenomena 
like those of dreams. Even men, it is supposed, can 
change their embodiment, and assume for a time the 
shape of wolves or birds;! and of course the gods with 
their superior powers have a still greater range, and the 
same deity may quite well manifest himself in the life 
of a tree or a spring, and yet emerge from time to time 
in human or animal form. All manifestations of life at 
or about a holy place readily assume a divine character 
and form a religious unity, contributing as they do to 
create and nourish the same religious emotion; and in all 
of them the godhead is felt to be present in the same 
direct way. The permanent manifestations of his presence, 
however, the sacred fountain and the sacred tree, are likely 
to hold the first place in acts of worship, simply because 
they are permanent and so attach to themselves a fixed 
sacred tradition. These considerations apply equally to 
the sanctuaries of nomadic and of settled peoples, but among 
the latter the religious importance of water and wood 
could not fail to be greatly reinforced by the growth of 
the ideas of Baal-worship, in which the deity as the giver 
of life is specially connected with quickening waters and 
vegetative growth. 

With this it agrees that sacred wells, in connection 
with sanctuaries, are found in all parts of the Semitic area, 
but are less prominent among the nomadic Arabs than 
among the agricultural peoples of Syria and Palestine. 
There is mention of fountains or streams at a good many 
Arabian sanctuaries, but little direct evidence that these 
waters were holy, or played any definite part in the ritual. 
The clearest case is that of Mecca, where the holiness of 
the well Zamzam is certainly pre-Islamic. It would even 
seem that in old time gifts were cast into it, as they were 

1 Supra, pp. 87, 88. 


168 SACRED WATERS LECT. V 


cast into the sacred wells of the northern Semites. Some 
kind of ritual holiness seems also to have attached to the 
pool beneath a waterfall at the Dausite sanctuary of 
Dusares.2 Again, as healing springs and sacred springs 
are everywhere identified, it is noteworthy that the south 
Arabs regard medicinal waters as inhabited by jinn, usually 
of serpent form,? and that the water of the sanctuary at 
the Palmetum was thought to be health-giving, and was 
carried home by pilgrims* as Zamzam water now is. In 
like manner the custom of pilgrims carrying away water 
from the well of ‘Orwa® is probably a relic of ancient 
sanctity. Further, on the borders of the Arabian field, we 
have the sacred fountain of Ephca at Palmyra, with which 
a legend of a demon in serpent form is still connected. 
This is a sulphurous spring, which had a guardian 


1So Wellhausen, p. 103, concludes with probability from the story that 
when the well was rediscovered and cleaned out by the grandfather of 
Mohammed, two golden gazelles and a number of swords were found in it. 
Everything told of the prophet’s ancestors must be received with caution, 
but this does not look like invention. The two golden gazelles are parallel 
to the golden camels of Saban and Nabatean inscriptions (7ZDMG. xxxviii. 
143 sq.). 

2 Ibn Hisham, p. 253; Wellhausen, p. 48 sg. A woman who adopts 
Islam breaks with the heathen god by “ purifying herself” in this pool. This 
implies that her act was a breach of the ritual of the spot; presumably a 
woman who required purification (viz. from her courses) was not admitted to 
the sacred water ; cf. Yaciit, i. 657, 1. 2 sqq., iv. 651, 1. 4 sqg.; Ibn Hisham, 
p. 15 ult. In Tabari, i. 271 sg., we read that the water of Beersheba shrank 
when a woman in her courses drew from it. Cf. also Bérini, Chron. p. 246, 
1. 8 sgq. Under ordinary circumstances to bathe in the sacred spring would 
be an act of homage to the heathen god: so at least it was in Syria. 

3 Mordtmann in ZDMG. xxxviii. 587, cites a modern instance from 
Maltzan, Reise in Siidarabien, p. 304, and others from Hamdani’s Iklil, ap. 
Miiller, Burgen, i. 34. Maltzan’s spring, the hot well of Msa‘ide, has every 
feature of an ancient sanctuary except that the serpent-god, who is invoked 
as Msa‘ud, and sends hot or cold water at the prayer of the worshipper, has 
been degraded to the rank of a demon. There is an annual pilgrimage to 
the spot in the month Rajab, the ancient sacred month of Arabia, which 
is accompanied ty festivities and lasts for several days. 

4 Agatharchides, ap. Diod. Sic. iii. 48, 

* Yaciit, i. 484; Cazwini, i. 200, 


LECT, V. OF THE PHC@NICIANS 169 


appointed by the god Yarhibol, and on an inscription * 
is called the “blessed fountain.”! Again, in the desert 
beyond Bostra, we find the Stygian waters, where a great 
cleft received a lofty cataract. The waters had the power 
to swallow up or cast forth the gifts flung into them, as a 
sign that the god was or was not propitious, and the oath 
by the spot and its stream was the most horrible known 
to the inhabitants of the region.2 The last two cases 
belong to a region in which religion was not purely 
Arabian in character, but the Stygian waters recall the 
waterfall in the Dausite sanctuary of Dusares, and 
Ptolemy twice mentions a Stygian fountain in Arabia 
proper. 

Among the northern Semites, the agricultural Canaan- 
ites and Syrians, sacred waters hold a much more preminent 
place. Where all ground watered by fountains and streams, 
without the aid of man’s hand, was regarded as the Baal’s 
land, a certain sanctity could hardly fail to be ascribed to 
every source of living water; and where the divine 
activity was looked upon as mainly displaying itself in 
the quickening of the soil, the waters which gave fertility 
to the land, and so life to its inhabitants, would appear 
to be the direct embodiment of divine energies. Accord- 
ingly we find that Hannibal, in his covenant with Philip 
of Macedon, when he swears before all the deities of 
Carthage and of Hellas, includes among the divine powers 
to which his oath appeals “the sun the moon and the 
earth, rivers, meadows (?) and waters.”* Thus when we 
find that temples were so often erected near springs and 


1 Wadd., No. 2571¢; De Vog., No. 95. For the modern serpent myth 
see Mordtmann, wt supra; Blunt, Pilgr. to Nejd, ii. 67. 

2 Damascius, Vita Isidori, § 199. 

8 Polybius, vii. 9. The word ‘‘meadows” is uncertain, resting on a 
conjecture of Casaubon: Aspavwy for dasmovwr Reiske conjectured Asma, 
In Palestine to this day all springs are viewed as the seats of spirits, and the 


170 SACRED WATERS LECT. V 


rivers, we must consider not only that such a position was 
convenient, inasmuch as pure water was indispensable 
for ablutions and other ritual purposes, but that the 
presence of living water in itself gave consecration to 
the place The fountain or stream was not a mere 
adjunct to the temple, but was itself one of the principal 
sacra of the spot, to which special legends and a special 
ritual were often attached, and to which the temple in 
many instances owed its celebrity and even its name. 
This is particularly the case with perennial streams and 
their sources, which in a country like Palestine, where 
rain is confined to the winter months, are not very 
numerous, and form striking features in the topography 
of the region. From Hannibal’s oath we may conclude 
that among the Phcenicians and Carthaginians all such 
waters were held to be divine, and what we know in 
detail of the waters of the Phoenician coast goes far to 
confirm the conclusion”? Of the eminent sanctity of 
certain rivers, such as the Belus and the Adonis, we have 
direct evidence, and the grove and pool of Aphaca at the 
source of the latter stream was the most famous of all 
Pheenician holy places? These rivers are named from 
gods, and so also, on the same coast, are the Asclepius, 
near Sidon, the Ares (perhaps identical with the Lycus), 
and presumably the Kishon.* The river of Tripolis, which 
descends from the famous cedars, is still called the Cadisha 


peasant women, whether Moslem or Christian, ask their permission before 
drawing water (ZDPV. x. 180); cf. Num. xxi. 17. 

1 For the choice of a place beside a pool as the site of a chapel, see 
Waddington, No 2015, sicsBing cores ovros av txricey tyyubs Aiuvns. 

2 The authorities for the details, so far as they are not cited below, will 
be found in Baudissin, Studien, ii. 161. 

3 Euseb., Vit. Const. ili. 55; Sozomen, ii. 5. 

4 River of wp, Ar. Cais. Prof. De Goeje, referring to Hamdani, p. 3 
lL. 9, and perhaps p- 221, L 14, suggests to me by letter that Cais is a title 
** dominus,” 


LECT. V. OF SYRIA 171 


or holy stream, and the grove at its source is sacred to 
Christians and Moslems alike.t 

In Hellenic and Roman times the source of the Jordan 
at Paneas with its grotto was sacred to Pan, and in ancient 
days the great Israelite sanctuary of Dan occupied the 
same site, or that of the twin source at Tell al-Cadi. It 
is evident that Naaman’s indignation when he was told 
to bathe in the Jordan, and his confidence that the rivers 
of Damascus were better than all the waters of Israel, 
sprang from the idea that the Jordan was the sacred 
healing stream of the Hebrews, as Abana and Pharpar 
were the sacred rivers of the Syrians, and in this he 
probably did no injustice to the belief of the mass of the 
Israelites. The sanctity of the Barada, the chief river of 
Damascus, was concentrated at its nominal source, the 
fountain of EI-Fiji, that is, wnyai. The river - gods 
Chrysorrhoa and Pegai often appear on Damascene coins, 
and evidently had a great part in the religion of the city. 
That the thermal waters of Gadara were originally sacred 
may be inferred from the peculiar ceremonies that were 
still observed by the patients in the time of Antoninus 
Martyr (De locis Sanctis, vii.). The baths were used by 
night; there were lights and incense, and the patient 
saw visions during the pernoctation. To this day a 
patient at the natural bath of Tiberias must not offend 
the spirits by pronouncing the name of God (ZDPYP. 
mers 1-9). 

The river of Ccele-Syria, the Orontes, was carved out, 
according to local tradition, by a great dragon, which 
disappeared in the earth at its source? The connection 

1 Robinson, iii. 590. On Carthaginian soil, it is not impossible that the 
Bagradas or Majerda, Macaros or Macros in MSS. of Polybius, bears the 
name of the Tyrian Baal-Melcarth, 


2 Strabo, xvi. 2. 7. Other sacred traditions about the Orontes are given 
by Malalas, p. 38, from Pausanias of Damascus. 


172 LEGENDS ABOUT LECT. V 


of jinn in the form of dragons or serpents with sacred 
or healing springs has already come before us in Arabian 
superstition, and the lake of Cadas near Emesa, which is 
regarded as the source of the river (Yacut, iii, 588), bears 
a name which implies its ancient sanctity. Among Syrian 
waters those of the Euphrates played an important part in 
the ritual of Hierapolis, and from them the great goddess 
was thought to have been born; while the source of its 
chief Mesopotamian tributary, the Aborrhas or Chaboras, 
was reverenced as the place where Hera (Atargatis) bathed 
after her marriage with Zeus (Bel). It gave out a sweet 
odour, and was full of tame, that is sacred, fishes.} 

The sacredness of living waters was by no means 
confined to such great streams and sources as have just 
been spoken of. But in cultivated districts fountains 
could not ordinarily be reserved for purposes exclusively 
sacred. Each town or village had asa rule its own well, 
and its own high place or little temple, but in Canaan the 
well was not generally within the precincts of the high 
place. Towns were built on rising ground, and the well 
lay outside the gate, usually below the town, while the 
high place stood on the higher ground overlooking the 
human habitations? Thus any idea of sanctity that might 
be connected with the fountain was dissociated from the 
temple ritual, and would necessarily become vague and 
attenuated. Sacred springs in the full sense of the word 


1 lian, Nat. Ann. xii. 30; Pliny, H. N. xxxi. 37, xxxii. 16. 

2 Gen. xxiv. 11; 1 Sam. ix. 11; 2 Sam. ii. 13, xxiii. 16 ; 2 Kings ii. 21; 
1 Kings xxi, 18, 19, compared with chap. xxii. 38. 

3 There are, however, indications that in some cases the original sanctuary 
was at a well beneath the town. In 1 Kings i. 9, 38, the fountains of En- 
rogel, where Adonijah held his sacrificial feast, and of Gihon, where Solomon 
was crowned, are plainly the original sanctuaries of Jerusalem. The former 
was by the ‘‘serpent’s stone,” and may perhaps be identified with the 
‘dragon well” of Neh. ii. 13. Here again, as in Arabia and at the Orontes, 
the dragon or serpent has a sacred significance, 


LECT. V. SACRED WATERS 173 


are generally found, not at the ordinary local sanctuaries, 
but at remote pilgrimage shrines like Aphaca, Beersheba, 
Mamre, or within the enclosure of great and spacious 
temples like that at Ascalon, where the pool of Atargatis 
was shown and her sacred fishes were fed. Sometimes, 
as at Daphne near Antioch, the water and its surrounding 
groves formed a sort of public park near a city, where 
religion and pleasure were combined in the characteristic 
Syriac fashion.! 

The myths attached to holy sources and streams, and 
put forth to worshippers as accounting for their sanctity, 
were of various types; but the practical beliefs and ritual 
usages connected with sacred waters were much the same 
everywhere. The one general principle which runs through 
all the varieties of the legends, and which also lies at the 
basis of the ritual, is that the sacred waters are instinct 
with divine life and energy. The legends explain this 
in diverse ways, and bring the divine quality of the 
waters into connection with various deities or supernatural 
powers, but they all agree in this, that their main object 
is to show how the fountain or stream comes to be im- 
pregnated, so to speak, with the vital energy of the deity 
to which it is sacred. 

Among the ancients blood is generally conceived as the 
principle or vehicle of life, and so the account often given 
of sacred waters is that the blood of the deity flows in 
them. Thus as Milton writes— 


Smooth Adonis from his native rock 
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood 
Of Thammuz yearly wounded.? 


1A similar example, Wadd., No. 2370. A sacred fountain of Eshmun 
‘*in the mountain ” seems to appear in CZS. No. 3, 1. 17; ef. G. Hoffmann, 
Ueber einige Phen. Inschrr. p. 52 sq. See also Baudissin, Ad. p. 244 sq. 

2 Paradise Lost, i. 450, following Lucian, Dea Syria, viii. 


174 LEGENDS ABOUT LECT. ¥ 


The ruddy colour which the swollen river derived from 
the soil at a certain season’ was ascribed to the blood of 
the god who received his death-wound in Lebanon at that 
time of the year, and lay buried beside the sacred source.? 
Similarily a tawny fountain near Joppa was thought to 
derive its colour from the blood of the sea-monster slain 
by Perseus? and Philo Byblius says that the fountains and 
rivers sacred to the heaven-god (Baalshamaim) were those 
which received his blood when he was mutilated by his 
son. In another class of legends, specially connected 
with the worship of Atargatis, the divine life of the waters 
resides in the sacred fish that inhabit them. Atargatis 
and her son, according to a legend common to Hierapolis 
and Ascalon, plunged into the waters—in the first case 
the Euphrates, in the second the sacred pool at the temple 
near the town—and were changed into fishes.° This is 
only another form of the idea expressed in the first class 
of legend, where a god dies, that is ceases to exist in 
human form, but his life passes into the waters where he 
is buried; and this again is merely a theory to bring the 
divine water or the divine fish into harmony with anthro- 


1 The reddening of the Adonis was observed by Maundrell on March 34, 
169, and by Renan early in February. Cf. Frazer, GB. v. 225. 

2 Melito in Cureton, Spic. Syr. p. 25, 1. 7. That the grave of Adonis 
was also shown at the mouth of the river has been inferred from Dea Syr. 
vi. vii. The river Belus also had its Memnonion or Adonis tomb (Josephus, 
B. J. ii. 10. 2.) In modern Syria cisterns are always found beside the 
graves of saints, and are believed to be inhabited by a sort of fairy. A 
pining child is thought to be a fairy changeling, and must be lowered into 
the cistern. The fairy will then take it back, and the true child is drawn 
up initsroom. This is in the region of Sidon (ZDPV. vol. vii. p. 84; ef. 
ib. p. 106). 

3 Pausanias, iv. 85. 9. 

4Euseb. Prep. Ev. i. 10. 22 (Fr. Hist. Gr. iii. 568). The fountain of 
the Chaboras, where Hera pera robs yawous . . &atdrovoars, belongs to the 
same class. 

5 Hyginus, Astr. ii. 30; Manilius, iv. 580 sqqg.; Xanthus in Atheneus, 
viii. 37. I have discussed these legends at length in the English Hist, 
Review, April 1887, to which the reader is referred for details. 


LECT. V. SACRED WATERS 175 


pomorphic ideas.__ The same thing was sometimes effected 
in another way by saying that the anthropomorphic deity 
was born from the water, as Aphrodite sprang from the 
sea-foam, or as Atargatis, in another form of the Euphrates 
legend, given by the scholiast on Germanicus’s Aratus, was 
born of an egg which the sacred fishes found in the 
Euphrates and pushed ashore. Here, we see, it was left 
to the choice of the worshippers whether they would think 
of the deity as arising from or disappearing in the water, 
and in the ritual of the Syrian goddess at Hierapolis both 
ideas were combined at the solemn feasts, when her image 
was carried down to the river and back again to the 
temple. Where the legend is so elastic we can hardly 
doubt that the sacred waters and sacred fish were wor- 
shipped for their own sake before the anthropomorphic 
goddess came into the religion, and in fact the sacred fish 
at the source of the Chaboras are connected with an 
altogether different myth. Fish were taboo, and sacred 
fish were found in rivers or in pools at sanctuaries, all 
over Syria.” This superstition has proved one of the 


1 The idea that the godhead consecrates waters by descending into them 
appears at Aphaca in a peculiar form associated with the astral character 
which, at least in later times, was ascribed to the goddess Astarte. It was 
believed that the goddess on a certain day of the year descended into the 
river in the form of a fiery star from the top of Lebanon. So Sozomen, 
H. E. ii. 4, 5. Zosimus, i, 58, says only that fireballs appeared at the 
temple and the places about it, on the occasion of solemn feasts, and does not 
connect the apparition with the sacred waters. There is nothing improbable 
in the frequent occurrence of striking electrical phenomena in a mountain 
sanctuary. We shall presently find fiery apparitions connected also with 
sacred trees (infra, p. 193). ‘‘ Thunders, lightnings and light flashing 
in the heavens,” appear as objects of veneration among the Syrians (Jacob 
of Edessa, Qu. 48); cf. also the fiery globe of the Heliopolitan Lion-god, 
whose fall from heaven is described by Damascius, Vit. Js. § 203, and what 
Pausanias of Damascus relates of the fireball that checked the flood of the 
Orontes (Malalas, p. 38). 

2 Xenophon, Anab. i. 4. 9, who found such fish in the Chalus near 
Aleppo, expressly says that they were regarded as gods. Lucian, Dea Syr. 
xlv., relates that at the lake of Atargatis at Hierapolis the sacred fish 


176 ORACLES FROM LECT. V 


~e 


most durable parts of ancient heathenism; sacred fish are 
still kept in pools at the mosques of Tripolis and Edessa. 
At the latter place it is believed that death or other 
evil consequences would befall the man who dared to eat 
them. 

The living power that inhabits sacred waters and gives 
them their miraculous or healing quality is very often held 
to be a serpent, as in the Arabian and Hebrew cases which 
have been already cited,? or a huge dragon or water monster, 
such as that which in the Antiochene legend hollowed out 
the winding bed of the Orontes and disappeared beneath 
its source.® In such cases the serpents are of course 
supernatural serpents or jinn, and the dragon of Orontes 
was identified in the Greek period with Typhon, the enemy 
of the gods* But the demon may also have other forms ; 
thus at Ramallah in Palestine there are two springs, of 
which one is inhabited by a camel, the other by a bride; 
while the spring at ‘Artas is guarded by a white and a 
black ram.° 

In all their various forms the point of the legends is 
that the sacred source is either inhabited by a demoniac 
being or imbued with demoniac life. The same notion 
appears with great distinctness in the ritual of sacred 


wore gold ornaments, as did also the eels at the sanctuary of the war-god 
Zeus, amidst the sacred plane-trees (Herod. v. 119) at Labraunda in Caria 
(Pliny, H. N. xxxii. 16,17; lian, WN. 4. xii. 30). Caria was thoroughly 
permeated by Pheenician influence. 

1 Sachau, Reise, p. 197. 2 Supra, p. 168 sqq. 

3 The Leviathan (}°M ) of Scripture, like the Arabian tinnin, is probably 
a personification of the waterspout (Mas‘iidi, i. 263, 266; Ps. cxlviii. 7). 
Thus we see how readily the Eastern imagination clothes aquatic pheno- 
mena with an animal form. ’ 

4 Hence perhaps the modern name of the river Nahr al-‘Asi, ‘‘ the rebel’s 
stream” ; the explanation in Yacit, iii. 588, does not commend itself. The 
burial of the Typhonic dragon at the source of the Orontes may be compared 
with the Moslem legend of the well at Babylon, where the rebel angels 
Hartt and Marit were entombed (Cazwini, i. 197). 

5 ZDPYV, x. 180; PEF. Qu. St. 1893, p. 204. 


LECT. V. SACRED WATERS 177 


waters. Though such waters are often associated with 
temples, altars, and the usual apparatus of a cultus addressed 
to heavenly deities, the service paid to the holy well re- 
tained a form which implies that the divine power addressed 
was in the water. We have seen that at Mecca, and at the 
Stygian waters in the Syrian desert, gifts were cast into the 
holy source. But even at Aphaca, where, in the times to 
which our accounts refer, the goddess of the spot was held 
to be the Urania or celestial Astarte, the pilgrims cast 
into the pool jewels of gold and silver, webs of linen and 
byssus and other precious stuffs, and the obvious contra- 
diction between the celestial character of the goddess and 
the earthward destination of the gifts was explained by 
the fiction that at the season of the feast she descended 
into the pool in the form of a fiery star. Similarly, at the 
annual fair and feast of the Terebinth, or tree and well 
of Abraham at Mamre, the heathen visitors, who reverenced 
the spot as a haunt of “angels,”! not only offered sacrifices 
beside the tree, but illuminated the well with lamps, and 
cast into it libations of wine, cakes, coins, myrrh, and incense.” 
On the other hand, at the sacred waters of Karwa and 
Sawid in 8. Arabia, described by Hamdani in the Jkiil 
(Miller, Burgen, p. 69), offerings of bread, fruit or other 
food were deposited beside the fountain. In the former 
case they were believed to be eaten by the serpent denizen 
of the water, in the latter they were consumed by beasts 
and birds. At Gaza bread is still thrown into the sea by 
way of offering.® 


1 7.e.demons. Sozomen says ‘‘angels,” and not ‘‘devils,”’ because the 
sanctity of the place was acknowledged by Christians also. 

?Sozomen, H. #. ii. 4.—As all ‘‘living waters” seem to have had a 
certain sanctity in N. Semitic religion, the custom of throwing the ‘Advdes 
xno into springs (Zenobius, Cent. i. 49) may probably belong to this 
chapter. 

8 PEF. Qu. St. 1893, p. 216. 


12 


178 ORACLES FROM LECT. V. 


In ancient religion offerings are the proper vehicle of 
prayer and supplication, and the worshipper when he pre- 
sents his gift looks for a visible indication whether his 
prayer is accepted! At Aphaca and at the Stygian 
fountain the accepted gift sank into the depths, the 
unacceptable offering was cast forth by the eddies. It 
was taken as an omen of the impending fall of Palmyra 
that the gifts sent from that city at an annual festival 
were cast up again in the following year.” In this 
example we see that the holy well, by declaring the 
favourable or unfavourable disposition of the divine power, 
becomes a place of oracle and divination. In Greece, also, 
holy wells are connected with oracles, but mainly in the 
form of a belief that the water gives prophetic inspiration 
to those who drink of it. At the Semitic oracle of Aphaca 
the method is more primitive, for the answer is given 
directly by the water itself, but its range is limited to 
what can be inferred from the acceptance or rejection of 
the worshipper and his petition. 

The oracle of Daphne near Antioch, which was obtained 
by dipping a laurel leaf into the water, was presumably of 
the same class, for we cannot take seriously the statement 
that the response appeared written on the leaf. The 
choice of the laurel leaf as the offering cast into the 
water must be due to Greek influence, but Daphne was a 
sanctuary of Heracles, 2.e. of the Semitic Baal, before the 
temple of Apollo was built.‘ 


1 Cf. Gen. iv. 4, 5. 

? Zosimus, i. 58. At Aphaca, as at the Stygian fountain, the waters fall 
down a cataract into a deep gorge, 

3 Sozomen, v. 19. 11. Cf. the ordeal by casting a tablet into the water 
at Palici in Sicily. The tablet sank if what was written on it was false 
(Mir. Ausce. § 57). 

* Malalas, p. 204. A variant of this form of oracle occurs at Myra in 
Lycia, where the omen is from the sacred fish accepting or rejecting the food 
offered to them (Pliny, H. N. xxxii. 17; Alian, NV. A. viii. 5; Atheneus, 


LECT. V. SACRED WATERS 179 

An oracle that speaks by receiving or rejecting the 
worshipper and his homage may very readily pass into an 
ordeal, where the person who is accused of a crime, or is 
suspected of having perjured himself in a suit, is presented 
at the sanctuary, to be accepted or rejected by the deity, 
in accordance with the principle that no impious person 
can come before God with impunity... A rude form of 
this ordeal seems to survive even in modern times in 
the widespread form of trial of witches by water. In 
Hadramaut, according to Macrizi,?> when a man was in- 
jured by enchantment, he brought all the witches suspect 
to the sea or to a deep pool, tied stones to their backs and 
threw them into the water. She who did not sink was 
the guilty person, the meaning evidently being that the 
sacred element rejects the criminal? That an impure 
person dare not approach sacred waters is a general 
principle—whether the impurity is moral or physical is 
not a distinction made by ancient religion. Thus in 
Arabia we have found that a woman in her uncleanness 
was afraid, for her children’s sake, to bathe in the water 
of Dusares; and to this day among the Yezidis no one may 
enter the valley of Sheik Adi, with its sacred fountain, 
unless he has first purified his body and clothes The 
sacred oil-spring of the Carthaginian sanctuary, described 
in the book of Wonderful Stories that passes under the 
name of Aristotle, would not flow except for persons 
ceremonially pure. An ordeal at a sacred spring based on 
viii. 8, p. 333). How far Lycian worship was influenced by the Semites is 
not clear. 

1Cf. Job xiii. 16; Isa. xxxiii. 14. 

2 De Valle Hadhramaut, p. 26 sq. 

3 The story about Mojammi‘ and Al-Ahwas (Agh. iv. 48), cited by Well- 
hausen, Heid. p. 160, refers to this kind of ordeal, not to a form of magic. 
A very curious story of the water test for witches in India is told by Ibr 


Batuta, iv. 37. 
* Layard, Nineveh, i. 280. 5 Mir, Ause. § 118. 


180 THE WATER LECT. ¥. 


this principle might be worked in several ways,) but the 
usual Semitic method seems to have been by drinking the 
water. Evidently, if it is dangerous for the impious person 
* to come into contact with the holy element, the danger 
must be intensified if he ventures to take it into his system, 
and it was believed that in such a case the draught pro- 
duced disease and death. At the Asbamzan lake and 
springs near Tyana the water was sweet and kindly to 
those that swore truly, but the perjured man was at once 
smitten in his eyes, feet and hands, seized with dropsy and 
wasting.” In like manner he who swore falsely by the 
Stygian waters in the Syrian desert died of dropsy within 
a year. In the latter case it would seem that the oath 
by the waters sufficed; but primarily, as we see in the 
other case, the essential thing is the draught of water at 
the holy place, the oath simply taking the place of the 
petition which ordinarily accompanies a ritual act. Among 
the Hebrews this ordeal by drinking holy water is preserved 
even in the pentateuchal legislation in the case of a woman 
suspected of infidelity to her husband.  MHere also the 
belief was that the holy water, which was mingled with 
the dust of the sanctuary, and administered with an oath, 
produced dropsy and wasting; and the antiquity of the 


1 See, for example, the Sicilian oracle of the Palic lake, where the oath of 
the accused was written on a tablet and cast into the water to sink or swim 
(Mir. Ause. § 57). 

2 Mir. Ausc. § 152; Philostr., Vit. Apollonii, i. 6. That the sanctuary 
was Semitic I infer from its name ; see below, p. 182. 

3 Num. v. 11 sqqg. In Agh. i. 156, 1. 3 sqg., a suspected wife swears 
seventy oaths at the Caaba, to which she is conducted with circumstances 
of ignominy—seated on a camel between two sacks of dung. This was 
under Islam, but is evidently an old custom. In heathen Arabia the decision 
in such a case was sometimes referred to a diviner, as we see from the story 
of Hind bint ‘Otba (‘Icd, iii. 273; Agh. viii. 50). An ordeal for virgins 
accused of unchastity existed at the Stygian water near Ephesus. The 
accused swore that she was innocent ; her oath was written and tied round 
her neck. She then entered the shallow pool, and if she was guilty the 
water rose till it covered the writing (Achilles Tatius. viii. 12). 


Sea oe 


LECT. V. OF JEALOUSY 181 


ceremony is evident not only from its whole character, but 
because the expression “holy water” (ver. 17) is unique in 
the language of Hebrew ritual, and must be taken as an 
isolated survival of an obsolete expression. Unique though 
the expression be, it is not difficult to assign its original 
meaning ; the analogies already before us indicate that we 
must think of water from a holy spring, and this conclusion 
is certainly correct. Wellhausen has shown that the 
oldest Hebrew tradition refers the origin of the Torah to 
the divine sentences taught by Moses at the sanctuary of 
Kadesh or Meribah,! beside the holy fountain which in 
Gen. xiv. 7 is also called “the fountain of judgment.” 
The principle underlying the administration of justice at 
the sanctuary is that cases too hard for man are referred 
to the decision of God. Among the Hebrews in Canaan 
this was ordinarily done by an appeal to the sacred lot, 
but the survival of even one case of ordeal by holy 
water leaves no doubt as to the sense of the “fountain 
of judgment” (Hn-Mishpat) or “waters of controversy ” 
(Meribah). 

With this evidence before us as to the early importance 
of holy waters among the Hebrews, we cannot but attach 
significance to the fact that the two chief places of pilgrim- 
age of the northern Israelites in the time of Amos were 
Dan and Beersheba.? We have already seen that there 
was a sacred fountain at Dan, and the sanctuary of Beer- 
_sheba properly consisted of the “Seven Wells,” which gave 
the place its name. It is notable that among the Semites 
a special sanctity was attached to groups of seven wells. 
In the canons of Jacob of Edessa (Qu. 43) we read of 
nominally Christian Syrians who bewail their diseases to 

1 Prolegomena, viii. 3 (Eng. trans. p. 348). 


2 Amos viii. 14; cf. 1 Kings xii. 30. 
¥ See Noldeke in Litt. Centralblatt, 22 Mar. 1879, p. 363. 


182 SEVEN WELLS LECT. V. 


eee 


the stars, or turn for help to a solitary tree or a fountain 
or seven springs or water of the sea, ete. Among the 
Mandeans, also, we read of mysteries performed at seven 
wells, and among the Arabs a place called “the seven 
wells” is mentioned by Strabo, xvi. 4. 24. The name of 
the Asbamezan waters seems also to mean “seven waters” 
(Syr. shab'a maya); the spot is a lake where a number of 
sources bubble up above the surface of the water. Seven 
is a sacred number among the Semites, particularly affected 
in matters of ritual, and the Hebrew verb “to swear” 
means literally “to come under the influence of seven 
things.” Thus seven ewe lambs figure in the oath between 
Abraham and Abimelech at Beersheba, and in the Arabian 
oath of covenant described by Herodotus (i. 8), seven 
stones are smeared with blood. The oath of purgation at 
seven wells would therefore have peculiar force.” 

It is the part of a divine power to grant to his 
worshippers not only oracles and judgment, but help in 
trouble and blessing in daily life. The kind of blessing 
which it is most obvious to expect from a sacred spring is 
the quickening and fertilisation of the soil and all that 
depends on it. That fruitful seasons were the chief object 
of petition at the sacred springs requires no special proof, 
for this object holds the first place in all the great religious 
occasions of the settled Semites, and everywhere we find 
that the festal cycle is regulated by the seasons of the 


1 Cf. also the seven marvellous wells at Tiberias (Cazwini, i. 193), and 
the Thorayya or ‘‘ Pleiad waters” at Dariya (Yacit, i. 924, iii. 588; Bekri, 
214, 627); also the modern Syrian custom of making a sick child that is 
thought to be bewitched drink from seven wells or cisterns (ZDPV. 
vii. 106). 

2 In Amos viii. 14 there is mention of an oath by the way (ritual ?) of 
Beersheba. The pilgrims at Mamre would not drink of the water of the 
well. Sozomen supposes that the gifts cast in made it undrinkable; but 
at an Oriental market, where every bargain is accompanied by false oaths 
and protestations, the precaution is rather to be explained by fear of the 
divine ordeal. 


a. SS 


LECT. V. HEALING WATERS 183 


agricultural year. Beyond doubt the first and best gift 
of the sacred spring to the worshipper was its own life- 
giving water, and the first object of the religion addressed 
to it was to encourage its benignant flow.? But the life- 
giving power of the holy stream was by no means confined 
to the quickening of vegetation. Sacred waters are also 
healing waters, as we have already seen in various examples, 
particularly in that of the Syrians, who sought to them for 
help in disease. I may here add one instance which, though 
it lies a little outside of the proper Semitic region, is con- 
nected with a holy river of the Syrians. In the Middle 
Ages it was still believed that he who bathed in the spring- 
time in the source of the Euphrates would be free from 
sickness for the whole year.2 This healing power was not 
confined to the water itself, but extended to the vegetation 
that surrounded it. By the sacred river Belus grew the 
eolocasium plants by which Heracles was healed after his 
conflict with the Hydra, and the roots continued to be used 
as a cure for bad sores. At Paneas an herb that healed 
all diseases grew at the base of a statue which was 
supposed to represent Christ, evidently a relic of the old 
heathenism of the place® Thus when Ezekiel describes 

1 A myth of the connection of sacred waters with the origin of agriculture 
seems to survive in modernised form in the medieval legend of ‘Ain al- 
bacar, ‘‘the oxen’s well,” at Acre. It was visited by Christian, Jewish and 
Moslem pilgrims, because the oxen with which Adam ploughed issued from 
it (Cazwini, Yacit). There was a mashhed, or sacred tomb, beside it, 
perhaps the modern representative of the ancient Memnonium. 

2In Num. xxi. 17 we find a song addressed to the well exhorting it to 
rise, which in its origin is hardly a mere poetic figure. We may compare 
what Cazwini, i. 189, records of the well of [abistan. When the water 
failed, a feast was held at the source, with music and dancing, to induce 


it to flow again. See also the modern Palestinian usage cited above, p. 
169, n. 3. 

3 Cazwini, i. 194. I may also cite the numerous fables of amulets, to be 
found in the Tigris and other rivers, which protected their wearers against 
wild beasts, demons and other dangers (Mir. Ausc. § 159 sg.). 

4 Claudius Iolaus, ap. Steph. Byz. s.v."Axy. 

6 Theophanes, quoted by Reland, Antig. Hebr. ii. 922. 


184 HEALING WATERS LECT, V. 


the sacred waters that issue from the New Jerusalem as 
giving life wherever they come, and the leaves of the 
trees on their banks as supplying medicine, his imagery 
is in full touch with common Semitic ideas (Ezek. xlvii. 
9, 12). 

The healing power of sacred water is closely connected 
with its purifying and consecrating power, for the primary 
conception of uncleanness is that of a dangerous infection. 
Washings and purifications play a great part in Semitic 
ritual, and were performed with living water, which was as 
such sacred in some degree. Whether specially sacred 
springs were used for purification, and if so under what 
restrictions I cannot make out; in most cases, I apprehend, 
they were deemed too holy to be approached by a person 
technically impure. It appears, however, from Ephrem 
Syrus that the practice of bathing in fountains was one 
of the heathen customs to which the Syrians of his time 
were much addicted, and he seems to regard this as a sort 
of heathen consecration! Unfortunately the rhetoric of 
the Syrian fathers seldom condescends to precise details on 
such matters. 

From this account of the ritual of sacred wells it will, 
I think, be clear that the usages and ceremonies are all 
intelligible on general principles, without reference to par- 
ticular legends or the worship of the particular deities 
associated with special waters. The fountain is treated as 
a living thing, those properties of its waters which we call 
natural are regarded as manifestations of a divine life, and 
the source itself is honoured as a divine being, I had 
almost said a divine animal. When religion takes a form 
decidedly anthropomorphic or astral, myths are devised to 
reconcile the new point of view with the old usage, but the 
substance of the ritual remains unchanged. 

1 Opp. iii. 670 sq.; H. et S., ed. Lamy, ii. 395, 411, 


LECT. ¥. SACRED TREES 185 


Let us now pass on from the worship of sacred waters 
to the cults connected with sacred trees.! 

That the conception of trees as demoniac beings was 
familiar to the Semites has been already shown by many 
examples,? and there is also abundant evidence that in 
all parts of the Semitic area trees were adored as 
divine. 

Tree worship pure and simple, where the tree is in all 
respects treated as a god, is attested for Arabia (but not 
on the best authority) in the case of the sacred date-palm 
at Nejran.? It was adored at an annual feast, when it was 
all hung with fine clothes and women’s ornaments. A 
similar tree, to which the people of Mecca resorted 
annually, and hung upon it weapons, garments, ostrich 
eggs and other gifts, is spoken of in the traditions of the 
prophet under the vague name of a dhat anwéat, or “ tree 
to hang things on.” It seems to be identical with the 
sacred acacia at Nakhla in which the goddess Al-‘Ozza was 
believed to reside. The tree at Hodaibiya, mentioned in 
Sura xlviii. 18, was frequented by pilgrims who thought 
to derive a blessing from it, till it was cut down by the 
Caliph ‘Omar lest it should be worshipped like Al-Lat and 
Al-‘Ozza.5 By the modern Arabs sacred trees are called 
manahil, places where angels or junn descend and are 
heard dancing and singing. It is deadly danger to pluck 

1 On sacred trees among the Semites, see Baudissin, Studien, ii. 184 sqq. ; 
for Arabia, Wellhausen, Heid. p. 104. Compare Botticher, Bawmceultus der 
Hellenen (Berl. 1856), and Mannhardt, Wald- und Feld-Culte (Berl. 1875, 77). 

2 Supra, p. 133. 

3 Tabari, i. 922 (Ndldeke’s trans. p. 181); Ibn Hish. 22. The authority 
is Wahb b. Monabbih, who, I fear, was little better than a plausible liar. 

4 Wellhausen, pp. 36 sq., 38 sq. 

5 Yacit, iii. 261. At Hodaibiya there was also a well whose waters were 
miraculously increased by the prophet (Ibn Hish. 742 ; Moh. in Med, 247). 
I suspect that the sanctity of tree and well are older than Mohammed, for 


the place is reckoned to the Haram but juts out beyond the line of its border 
(Yacit, ii. 222). 


186 SACRED TREES LECT. V 


so much as a bough from such a tree; they are honoured 
with sacrifices, and parts of the flesh are hung on them, 
as well as shreds of calico, beads, ete. The sick man who 
sleeps under them receives counsel in a dream for the 
restoration of his health.t 

Among the heathen Syrians tree worship must have 
had a large place, for this is one of the superstitions which 
Christianity itself was powerless to eradicate. We have 
already met with nominal Christians of Syria who in their 
sicknesses turned for help to a solitary tree, while zealous 
Christians were at pains to hew down the “trees of the 
demons.”” As regards the Phoenicians and Canaanites we 
have the testimony of Philo Byblius that the plants of 
the earth were in ancient times esteemed as gods and 
honoured with libations and sacrifices, because from them 
the successive generations of men drew the support of their 
life. To this day the traveller in Palestine frequently 
meets with holy trees hung like an Arabian dhat anwit 
with rags as tokens of homage. 

What place the cult of trees held in the more 
developed forms of Semitic religion it is not easy to 
determine. In later times the groves at the greater 
sanctuaries do not seem to have been direct objects of 
worship, though they shared in the inviolability that 
belonged to all the surroundings of the deity, and were 
sometimes—like the ancient cypresses of Heracles at 
Daphne—believed to have been planted by the god 
himself. It was not at the great sanctuaries of cities 
but in the open field, where the rural population had 
continued from age to age to practise primitive rites 
without modification, that the worship of “solitary 


1 Doughty, Arabia Deserta, i. 448 sqq. 

2 See the citations in Kayser, Jacod v, Edessa, p. 141. 

8 Similarly the tamarisk at Beersheba was believed to have been planted 
by Abraham (Gen. xxi. 33). 


LECT. Vv. ' THE ASHERA 187 


trees” survived the fall of the great gods of Semitic 
heathenism.! 

There is no reason to think that any of the greater 
Semitic cults was developed out of tree worship. In all 
of them the main place is given to altar service, and we 
shall see by and by that the beginnings of this form of 
worship, so far as they can be traced back to a time when 
the gods were not yet anthropomorphic, point to the cult of 
animals rather than of trees. That trees are habitually 
found at sanctuaries is by no means inconsistent with this 
view, for where the tree is merely conceived as planted 
by the god or as marking his favourite haunt, it receives 
no direct homage. 

When, however, we find that no Canaanite high place 
was complete without its sacred tree standing beside the 
altar, and when we take along with this the undoubted 
fact that the direct cult of trees was familiar to all the 
Semites, it is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that 
some elements of tree worship entered into the ritual 
even of such deities as in their origin were not tree-gods. 
The local sanctuaries of the Hebrews, which the prophets 
regard as purely heathenish, and which certainly were 
modelled in all points on Canaanite usage, were altar- 
sanctuaries. But the altars were habitually set up 
“under green trees,” and, what is more, the altar was 
incomplete unless an ashera stood beside it. The meaning 
of this word, which the Authorised Version wrongly renders 
“srove,” has given rise to a good deal of controversy. 
What kind of object the ashera was appears from Deut. 
xvi. 21: “Thou shalt not plant an ashera of any kind of 

1 The solitary tree may in certain cases be the last relic of a ruined 
heathen sanctuary. What Mocaddasi relates about the place called 
Al-Shajara (‘‘the Tree”; supra, p. 160) points to something of this kind ; 


for here there was an annual feast or fair. At the Terebinth of Mamre in 
like manner an altar at least can hardly have been lacking in heathen times, 


188 THE CANAANITE LECT. V 


wood (or, an ashera, any kind of tree) beside the altar of 
Jehovah”; it must therefore have been either a living 
tree or a tree-like post, and in all probability either form 
was originally admissible. The oldest altars, as we gather 
from the accounts of patriarchal sanctuaries, stood under 
actual trees; but this rule could not always be followed, 
and in the period of the kings it would seem that the 
place of the living tree was taken by a dead post or pole, 
planted in the ground like an English Maypole The 
ashera undoubtedly was an object of worship; for the 
prophets put it on the same line with other sacred 
symbols, images cippi and Baal-pillars (Isa. xvii. 8; Micah 
v. 12 sqq.), and the Pheenician inscription of Mastb 
speaks of “the Astarte in the Ashera of the divinity of 
Hammon.” The ashera therefore is a sacred symbol, the 
seat of the deity, and perhaps the name itself, as G. 
Hoffmann has suggested, means nothing more than the 
“mark” of the divine presence. But the opinion that 
there was a Canaanite goddess called Ashera, and that 
the trees or poles of the same name were her particular 
symbols, is not tenable; every altar had its ashera, even 
such altars as in the popular, pre-prophetic forms of 
Hebrew religion were dedicated to Jehovah.2 This is 

1 It is a thing made by man’s hands; Isa. xvii. 8, cf. 1 Kings xvi. 33, 
etc. In 2 Kings xxi. 7 (cf. xxiii. 6) we read of the Ashera-image. Similarly 
in 1 Kings xv. 13 there is mention of a ‘‘grisly object” which Queen Maacah 
made for an Ashera. These expressions may imply that the sacred pole 
was sometimes carved into a kind of image. That the sacred tree should 
degenerate first into a mere Maypole, and then into a rude wooden idol, is 
in accordance with analogies found elsewhere, e.g. in Greece ; but it seems 
quite as likely that the ashera is described as a kind of idol simply because 
it was used in idolatrous cultus. An Assyrian monument from Khorsabad, 
figured by Botta and Layard, and reproduced in Rawlinson, Monarchies, 
ii. 37, and Stade, Gesch. Isr. i. 461, shows an ornamental pole planted beside a 
portablealtar. Priests stand before it engaged in an act of worship, and touch 
the pole with their hands, or perhaps anoint it with some liquid substance, 


2The prohibition in Deut. xvi. 21 is good evidence of the previous 
practice of the thing prohibited. See also 2 Kings xiii. 6. 


LECT. V. ASHERA 189 


not consistent with the idea that the sacred pole was the 
symbol of a distinct divinity; it seems rather to show 
that in early times tree worship had such a vogue in 
Canaan that the sacred tree, or the pole its surrogate, 
had come to be viewed as a general symbol of deity which 
might fittingly stand beside the altar of any god. 


1 If a god and a goddess were worshipped together at the same sanctuary, 
as was the case, for example, at Aphaca and Hierapolis, and if the two sacred 
symbols at the sanctuary were a pole and a pillar of stone, it might naturally 
enough come about that the pole was identified with the goddess and the 
pillar with the god. The worship of Tammuz or Adonis was known at 
Jerusalem in the time of Ezekiel (viii. 14), and with Adonis the goddess 
Astarte must also have been worshipped, probably as the ‘‘ queen of heaven” 
(Jer. vii., xliv.; cf. on this worship Kuenen in the Verslagen, etc., of the 
Royal Acad. of Amsterdam, 1888). It is not therefore surprising that in 
one or two late passages, written at a time when all the worship of the high 
places was regarded as entirely foreign to the religion of Jehovah, the 
Asherim seem to be regarded as the female partners of the Baalim; i.e. 
that the ashera is taken as a symbol of Astarte (Judg. iii. 7). The prophets 
of the ashera in 1 Kings xviii. 19, who appear along with the prophets of 
the Tyrian Baal as ministers of the foreign religion introduced by Jezebel, 
must have been prophets of Astarte. They form part of the Tyrian queen’s 
court, and eat of her table, so that they have nothing to do with Hebrew 
religion. And conversely the old Hebrew sacred poles can have had nothing 
to do with the Tyrian goddess, for Jehu left the ashera at Samaria standing 
when he abolished all trace of Tyrian worship (2 Kings xiii. 6). There is 
no evidence of the worship of a divine pair among the older Hebrews; in 
the time of Solomon Astarte worship was a foreign religion (1 Kings xi. 5), 
and it is plain from Jer. ii. 27 that in ordinary Hebrew idolatry the tree 
or stock was the symbol not of a goddess but of a god. Even among the 
Pheenicians the association of sacred trees with goddesses rather than with 
gods is not so clear as is often supposed. From all this it follows that the 
‘‘ prophets of the Ashera” in 1 Kings, J.c., are very misty personages, and 
that the mention of them implies a confusion between Astarte and the 
Ashera, which no Israelite in Elijah’s time, or indeed so long as the 
northern kingdom stood, could have fallen into. In fact they do not 
reappear either in ver. 22 or in ver. 40, and the mention of them seems to be 
due to a late interpolation (Wellh., Hexateuch, 2nd ed. (1889), p. 281). 

The evidence offered by Assyriologists that Ashrat = Ashera was a 
goddess (see Schrader in Zettschr. f. Assyriologie, iii. 363 sq.) cannot over- 
rule the plain sense of the Hebrew texts. Whether it suffices to show that 
in some places the general symbol of deity had become a special goddess is a 
question on which I do not offer an opinion; but see G. Hoffmann, Ueber 
einige Phen. Inschrr. (1889), p. 26 sqqg., whose whole remarks are note- 
worthy. In Cit. 51 (ZDMG. xxxv. 424) the goddess seems to be called the 


190 LEGENDS OF LECT. V 


The general adoption of tree symbols at Canaanite 
sanctuaries must be connected with the fact that all 
Canaanite Baalim, whatever their original character, were 
associated with naturally fertile spots (Baal’s land), and 
were worshipped as the givers of vegetable increase. We 
have seen already in the case of sacred streams how the 
life-blood of the god was conceived as diffused through 
the sacred waters, which thus became themselves impreg- 
nated with divine life and energy. And it was an easy 
extension of this idea to suppose that the tree which 
overshadowed the sacred fountain, and drew perennial 
strength and freshness from the moisture at its roots, was 
itself instinct with a particle of divine life. With the 
ancients the conception of life, whether divine or human, 
was not so much individualised as it is with us; thus, for 
example, all the members of one kin were conceived as 
having a common life embodied in the common blood 
which flowed through their veins. Similarly one and the 
same divine life might be shared by a number of objects, 
if all of them were nourished from a common vital 
source, and the elasticity of this conception made it very 
easy to bring natural holy things of different kinds into 
the cult of one and the same god. Elements of water 
tree and animal worship could all be combined in the 
ritual of a single anthropomorphic deity, by the simple 
supposition that the life of the god flowed in the sacred 
waters and fed the sacred tree. 

As regards the connection of holy waters and holy 
trees, it must be remembered that in most Semitic lands 
self-sown wood can flourish only where there is under- 
ground water, and where therefore springs or wells exist 
beside the trees. Hence the idea that the same life is 


mother of the sacred pole (FNWNT ON), but the editors of the CIS 
(No. 13) read NUN. See Cooke, No. 14. 


LECT. Y. HOLY TREES 191 


manifested in the water and in the surrounding vegetation 
could hardly fail to suggest itself, and, broadly speaking, 
the holiness of fountains and that of trees, at least among 
the northern Semites, appear to be parts of the same 
religious conception, for it is only in exceptional cases that 
the one is found apart from the other. 

Where a tree was worshipped as the symbol of an 
anthropomorphic god we sometimes find a transformation 
legend directly connecting the life of the god with the 
vegetative life of the tree. This kind of myth, in which 
a god is transformed into a tree or a tree springs from the 
blood of a god, plays a large part in the sacred lore of 
Phrygia, where tree worship had peculiar prominence, and 
is also common in Greece. The Semitic examples are not 
numerous, and are neither so early nor so well attested as 
to inspire confidence that they are genuine old legendyg 
independent of Greek influence.2 The most important of 
them is the myth told at Byblus in the time of Plutarch, 
of the sacred erica which was worshipped in the temple 
of Isis, and was said to have grown round the dead body 
of Osiris. At Byblus, Isis and Osiris are really Astarte 
and Adonis, so this may possibly be an original Semitic 
legend of a holy tree growing from the grave of a god.? 


1 An interesting example of the combination may here be added to those 
cited above. The Syriac text of Epiphanius, De pond. et mens. § 62 (Lagarde, 
V. T. Fragm. p. 65 ; Symmicta, ii. 203), tells us that Atad of Gen. 1. 11 was 
identified with the spring and thorn-bush of Beth-hagla near Jericho, and 
the explanation offered of the name Beth-hagla seems to be based on a local 
tradition of a ritual procession round the sacred objects. See also the 
Onomastica, s.v. Area Atath. In Greece also it is an exception to find a 
sacred tree without its fountain ; Botticher, p. 47. 

2 Cf. Baudissin, op. cit. p. 214. 

3 Plut. Js. & Os. §§ 15, 16. One or two features in the story are note- 
worthy. The sacred erica was a mere dead stump, for it was cut down by 
Isis and presented to the Byblians wrapped in a linen cloth and anointed 
with myrrh like a corpse. It therefore represented the dead god. But as 
a mere stump it also resembles the Hebrew ashera. Can it be that the rite 
of draping and anointing a sacred stump supplies the answer to the unsolved 


192 FIERY LECT. Y. 

I apprehend, however, that the physical link between 
trees and anthropomorphic gods was generally sought in 
the sacred water from which the trees drew their life. 
This is probable from the use of the term bal to denote 
trees that need neither rain nor irrigation, and indeed 
from the whole circle of ideas connected with Baal’s 
land. A tree belonged to a particular deity, not because 
it was of a particular species, but simply because it was 
the natural wood of the place where the god was 
worshipped and sent forth his quickening streams to 
fertilise the earth. The sacred trees of the Semites 
include every prominent species of natural wood—the 
pines and cedars of Lebanon, the evergreen oaks of the 
Palestinian hills, the tamarisks of the Syrian jungles, the 
acacias of the Arabian wadies, and so forth! So far as 
these natural woods are concerned, the attempts that 
have been made to connect individual species of trees 
with the worship of a single deity break down altogether ; 
it cannot, for example, be said that the cypress belongs 
to Astarte more than to Melcarth, who planted the 
cypress trees at Daphne. 

Cultivated trees, on the other hand, such as the palm, 
the olive and the vine, might @ priori be expected, among 
the Semites as among the Greeks, to be connected with 
the special worship of the deity of the spot from which 
their culture was diffused; for religion and agricultural 


question of the nature of the ritual practices connected with the Ashera? 
Some sort of drapery for the ashera is spoken of in 2 Kings xxiii. 7, and the 
Assyrian representation cited on p, 188, note 1, perhaps represents the 
anointing of the sacred pole. | 

1 In modern Palestine the carob tree is peculiarly demoniac, the reddish 
hue of the wood suggesting blood (ZDPV. x. 181). According to PEF. Qu. 
St, 1893, p. 203 sq., fig, carob and sycamore trees are haunted by devils, and 
it is dangerous to sleep under them, whereas the lotus tree (sidr) and the 
tamarisk appear to be inhabited by a wely (saint). But a tree of any 
species may be sacred if it grows at a Macam or sacred spot. . 


ee, Ae a ee 


ee ee ee Ne ee SS Ll 


LECT, Vv. APPARITIONS 193 


arts spread together and the one carried the other with it 
Yet even of this there is little evidence; the palm was a 
familiar symbol of Astarte, but we also find a “Baal of 
the palm-tree” (Baal-tamar) in a place-name in Judg. xx. 
33. The only clear Semitic case of the association of a 
particular deity with a fruit tree is, I believe, that of the 
Nabatzan Dusares, who was the god of the vine. But the 
vine came to the Nabatzans only in the period of Hellenic 
culture,’ and Dusares as the wine-god seems simply to 
have borrowed the traits of Dionysus. 

At Aphaca at the annual feast the goddess appeared 
in the form of a fiery meteor, which descended from the 
mountain-top and plunged into the water, while according 
to another account fire played about the temple, presumably, 
since an electrical phenomenon must have lain at the 
foundation of this belief, in the tree-tops of the saered 
grove.” Similarly it was believed that fire played about 
the branches of the sacred olive tree between the Ambrosian 
rocks at Tyre, without scorching its leaves.? In like 
manner Jehovah appeared to Moses in the bush in flames 
of fire, so that the bush seemed to burn yet not to be 
consumed. The same phenomenon, according to Africanus 4 
and Eustathius,® was seen at the terebinth of Mamre; the 
whole tree seemed to be aflame, but when the fire sank 
again remained unharmed. As lights were set by the 
well under the tree, and the festival was a nocturnal one, 
this was probably nothing more than an optical delusion 
exaggerated by the superstitious imagination, a mere 
artificial contrivance to keep up an ancient belief which 
must once have had wide currency in connection with 


1 Diodorus, xix. 94. 3. 2 Supra, p. 175, note 1. 

3 Achilles Tatius, ii. 14; Nonnus, xl. 474; cf. the representation on & 
coin of Gordian 111. figured in Pietschmann, Phanizier, p. 295. 

4 Georg. Syncellus, Bonn ed. p. 202. 

> Cited by Reland, p. 712. 


13 


% 


194 DIVINATION LECT, Vv 


sacred trees, and is remarkable because it shows how a 
tree might become holy apart from all relation to agri- 
culture and fertility. Jehovah, “ who dwells in the bush” 
(Deut. xxxiil. 16), in the arid desert of Sinai, was the God 
of the Hebrews while they were still nomads ignorant of 
agriculture; and indeed the original seat of a conception 
like the burning bush, which must have its physical basis 
in electrical phenomena, must probably be sought in the 
clear dry air of the desert or of lofty mountains. The 
apparition of Jehovah in the burning bush belongs to the 
same circle of ideas as His apparition in the thunders and 
lightnings of Sinai. : 

When the divine manifestation takes such a form as 
the flames in the bush, the connection between the god and 
the material symbol is evidently much looser than in the 
Baal type of religion, where the divine life is immanent in 
the life of the tree; and the transition is comparatively 
easy from the conception of Deut. xxxiii. 16, where 
Jehovah inhabits (not visits) the bush, as elsewhere He is 
said to inhabit the temple, to the view prevalent in most 
parts of the Old Testament, that the tree or the pillar at 
a sanctuary is merely a memorial of the divine name, the 
mark of a place where He has been found in the past and 
may be found again. The separation between Jehovah 
and physical nature, which is so sharply drawn by the 
prophets and constitutes one of the chief points of 
distinction between their faith and that of the masses, 
whose Jehovah worship had all the characters of Baal 
worship, may be justly considered as a development of the 
older type of Hebrew religion. It has sometimes been 
supposed that the conception of a God immanent in nature 
is Aryan, and that of a transcendental God Semitic; but 
the former view is quite as characteristic of the Baal 
worship of the agricultural Semites as of the early faiths 


LECT. V. FROM TREES 195 
of the agricultural Aryans. It is true that the higher 
developments of Semitic religion took a different line, but 
they did not grow out of Baal worship. 

As regards the- special forms of cultus addressed to 
sacred trees, I can add nothing certain to the very scanty 
indications that have already come before us. Prayers 
were addressed to them, particularly for help in sickness, 
but doubtless also for fertile seasons and the like, and they 
were hung with votive gifts, especially garments and 
ornaments, perhaps also anointed with unguents as if 
they had been real persons. More could be said about 
the use of branches, leaves or other parts of sacred trees 
in lustrations, as medicine, and for other ritual purposes. 
But these things do not directly concern us at present ; 
they are simply to be noted as supplying additional 
evidence, if such be necessary, that a sacred energy, that 
is, a divine life, resided even in the parts of holy trees. 

The only other aspect of the subject which seems to 
call for notice at the present stage is the connection of 
sacred trees with oracles and divination. Oracles and 
omens from trees and at tree sanctuaries are of the com- 
monest among all races, and are derived in very various 
ways, either from observation of phenomena connected 
with the trees themselves, and interpreted as mani- 
festations of divine life, or from ordinary processes of 
divination performed in the presence of the sacred object. 
Sometimes the tree is believed to speak with an articulate 
voice, as the gharcad did in a dream to Moslim;? but 
except in a dream it is obvious that the voice of the 
tree can only be some rustling sound, as of wind in the 
branches, like that which was given to David as a token 


1 Cf. Botticher, op. cit. chap. xi. 
2 Supra, p. 133. The same belief in trees from which a spirit speaks 
oracles occurs in a modern legend given by Doughty, Ar. Des. ii. 209. 


196 HOLY TREES LECT. V. 


of the right moment to attack the Philistines and requires 


a soothsayer to interpret it. The famous holy tree near 
Shechem, called the tree of soothsayers in Judg. ix. 37? 
and the “tree of the revealer” in Gen. xii. 6, must have 
been the seat of a Canaanite tree oracle*® We have no 
hint as tc the nature of the physical indications that 
guided the soothsayers, nor have I found any other case 
of a Semitic tree oracle where the mode of procedure is 
described. But the belief in trees as places of divine 
revelation must have been widespread in Canaan. The 
prophetess Deborah gave her responses under a palm near 
Bethel, which according to sacred tradition marked the 
grave of the nurse of Rebekah That the artificial sacred 
tree or ashera was used in divination would follow from 
1 Kings xviii. 19, were it not that there are good grounds 
for holding that in this passage the prophets of the 
ashera are simply the prophets of the Tyrian Astarte. 
But in Hos. iv. 12 the “stock” of which the prophet’s 
contemporaries sought counsel can hardly be anything else 
than the ashera.® Soothsayers who draw their inspiration 


12 Sam. v. 24, 

7 A.V. ‘plain of Meonenim.” 

* It was perhaps only one tree of a sacred grove, for Deut. xi. 30 speaks 
of the “* trees of the revealer”’ in the plural. Sam. and LXX read “‘ oak.” 

“Gen. xxxv. 8. There indeed the tree is called an allén, a word 
generally rendered oak. But allén, like dah and élon, seems to be a name 
applicable to any sacred tree, perhaps to any great tree. Stade, Gesch. Is. 
i, 455, would even connect these words with é, god, and the Phenician 
alonim. 

5 As the next clause says, ‘‘and their rod declareth to them,” it is 
commonly supposed that rhabdomancy is alluded to, 7.e. the use of divining 
rods. And no doubt the divining rod, in which a spirit of life is supposed 
to reside, so that it moves and gives indications apart from the will of the 
man who holds it, is a superstition cognate to the belief in sacred trees ; but 
when ‘‘their rod” occurs in parallelism with ‘‘their stock” or tree, it lies 
nearer to cite Philo Byblius, ap. Eus. Pr. Hv. i. 10. 11, who speaks of 
rods and pillars consecrated by the Pheenicians and worshipped by annual 
feasts. On this view the rod is only a smaller ashera. Drusius therefore 
rneems to hit the mark in comparing Festus’s note on delwbrum, where the 


oe 


~~ ye eee ee le eee 


— a 


- 


LECT. v. AND CAVES 197 


from plants are found in Semitic legend even in the 
Middle Ages. 

To the two great natural marks of a place of worship, 
the fountain and the tree, ought perhaps to be added 
grottoes and caves of the earth. At the present day 
almost every sacred site in Palestine has its grotto, and 
that this is no new thing is plain from the numerous 
symbols of Astarte worship found on the walls of caves 
in Phoenicia. There can be little doubt that the oldest 
Pheenician temples were natural or artificial grottoes, and 
that the sacred as well as the profane monuments of 
Phoenicia, with their marked preference for monolithic 
forms, point to the rock-hewn cavern as the original type 
that dominated the architecture of the region.” But if 
this be so, the use of grottoes as temples in later times 
does not prove that caverns as such had any primitive 
religious significance. Religious practice is always con- 
servative, and rock-hewn temples would naturally be used 
after men had ceased to live like troglodytes in caves and 
holes of the earth. Moreover, ancient temples are in 
most instances not so much houses where the gods live, as 
storehouses for the vessels and treasures of the sanctuary. 
The altar, the sacred tree, and the other divine symbols to 
which acts of worship are addressed, stand outside in front 
of the temple, and the whole service is carried on in the 
open air. Now all over the Semitic world caves and pits 
are the primitive storehouses, and we know that in Arabia 


Romans are said to have worshipped pilled rods as gods. See more on rod 
worship in Botticher, op. cit. xvi. 5. Was the omen derived from the rod 
flourishing or withering? We have such an omen in Aaron’s rod (Num. 
xvii.) ; and Adonis rods, set as slips to grow or wither, seem to be referred 
to in Isa. xvii. 10 sqg., a passage which would certainly gain force if the 
withering of the slips was an ill omen. Divination from the flourishing 
and withering of sacred trees is very common in antiquity (Botticher, * 
shap. xi.). 

1 Chwolsohn, Ssadier, ii. 914. 4 Renan, Phénicie, p. 822 sq. 


198 HOLY CAVES LECT. V. 


a pit called the ghabghab, in which the sacred treasure was 
stored, was a usual adjunct to sanctuaries.. But there 
are weighty reasons for doubting whether this is the whole 
explanation of cave sacrifices. In other parts of the world, 
e.g. in Greece, there are many examples of caves associated 
with the worship of chthonic deities, and also with the 
oracles of gods like Apollo who are not usually regarded 
as chthonic or subterranean; and the acts performed in 
these caves imply that they were regarded as the peculiar 
seats of divine energy. The common opinion seems to be 
that Semitic gods were never chthonic, in the sense that 
their seats and the source of their influence were sought 
underground. But we know that all branches of the 
Semites believed in chthonic demons, the Hebrew 00, the 
Syrian zakkiré, the Arabian ahl al-ard or “ earth-folks,” ” 
with whom wizards hold fellowship. Again, the ordinary 
usages of Semitic religion have many points of contact 
with the chthonic rites of the Greeks. The Arabian 
ghabghad is not a mere treasury, for the victim is said to be 
brought to it, and the sacrificial blood flows into the pit. 
Similarly the annual human sacrifice at Dumetha (Duma) 
was buried under the altar-idol* As regards the northern 
Semites the chthonic associations of the Baalim as gods of 
the subterranean waters are unquestionable, particularly at 
sanctuaries like Aphaca, where the tomb of the Baal was 
shown beside his sacred stream ;° for a buried god is a god 
that dwells underground. The whole N. Semitic area was 
dotted over with sacred tombs, Memnonia, Semiramis 

1 Wellhausen, p. 103. 

2 For the 6b see especially Isa, xxix. 4; for the zakkiré, Julianos, ed. 
Hoffmann, p. 247, and 7DMG., xxviii. 666. For the ahi al-ard the oldest 
passage I know is Ibn Hisham, p. 258, 1. 19, where these demons appear 
in connection with witchcraft, exactly like the 6b and the zakkiré, 

3 Yacit, iii. 772 sqg.; Ibn Hisham, p. 55,1.18; cf. Wellhausen, wt supra. 


* Porphyry, De Abst. ii. 56. 
5 Supra, p. 174, note. 


LECT, V. AND PITS 199 


mounds and the like, and at every such spot a god or 
demigod had his subterrancan abode.t No part of old 
Semitic belief was more deeply graven on the popular 
imagination than this, which still holds its ground among 
the peasantry, in spite of Christianity and Islam, with the 
merely nominal modification that the ancient god has been 
transformed into a wonder-working sheikh or wely. In 
view of these facts it can hardly be doubted that remark- 
able caves or passages, leading into the bowels of the earth, 
were as Jikely to be clothed with supernatural associations 
among the Semites as among the Greeks. And there is at 
least one great Semitic temple whose legends distinctly 
indicate that the original sanctuary was a chasm in the 
ground. According to Lucian, this chasm swallowed up 
the waters of the Flood (Deucalion’s flood, as the Hellenised * 
form of the legend has it), and the temple with its altars 
and special ritual of pouring water into the gulf was 
erected in commemoration of this deliverance.? According 
to the Christian Melito, the chasm, or “ well,” as he calls it, 
was haunted by a demon and the water-pouring was 
designed to prevent him from coming up to injure men.’ 
Here the primitive sanctity of the chasm is the one fixed 
point amidst the variations and distortions of later 
legend; and on this analogy I am disposed to conjecture 
that in other cases also a cavern or cleft in the earth may 
have been chosen as a primeval sanctuary because it marked 
the spot where a chthonic god went up and down between 
the outer world and his subterranean home, and where he 


1 That the Semiramis mounds were really tomb-sanctuaries appears from 
the testimony of Ctesias cited by Syncellus, i. 119 (Bonn), and John of 
Antioch (Fr. Hist. Gr. iv. 589), compared with Langlois, Chron. de Michel 
le Grand (Venice, 1868), p. 40. See also my article on “‘Ctesias and the 
Semiramis legend ” in Lng. Hist. Rev. April 1887, pp. 303 sqq. 

2 De Dea Syria, § 13, cf. § 48. 

3 Melito, Spic. Syr. p. 25. 


200 ALTARS AND LECT. V. 
could be best approached with prayers and offerings. 
What seems particularly to strengthen this conjecture is 
that the adytum, or dark inner chamber, found in many 
temples both among the Semites and in Greece, was almost 
certainly in its origin a cave; indeed in Greece it was 
often wholly or partially subterranean and is called 
peyapov—a word which in this application can hardly 
be true Greek, and mean “hall,” but is rather to be 
identified with the Semitic myn, “a cave.” The adytum 
is not a constant feature in Greek temples, and the name 
feyapov seems to indicate that it was borrowed from the 
Semites Where it does exist it is a place of oracle, as 
the Holy of Holies was at Jerusalem, and therefore cannot 
be looked upon in any other light than as the part of the 
sanctuary where the god is most immediately present. 
From this obscure topic we pass at once into clearer 
light when we turn to consider the ordinary artificial 
mark of a Semitic sanctuary, viz. the sacrificial pillar, 
cairn or rude altar. The sacred fountain and the sacred 
tree are common symbols at sanctuaries, but they are not 
invariably found, and in most cases they have but a 
secondary relation to the ordinary ritual. In the more 
advanced type of sanctuary the real meeting-place between 
man and his god is the altar. The altar in its developed 
form is a raised structure upon which sacrifices are pre- 
sented to the god. Most commonly the sacrifices are fire- 
offerings, and the altar is the place where they are burned ; 
but in another type of ritual, of which the Roman lecéi- 
sterniwm and the Hebrew oblation of shewbread are familiar 
examples, the altar is simply a table on which a meal is 
spread before the deity. Whether fire is used or not is a 


1 The possibility of this can hardly be disputed when we think of the 
temple of Apollo at Delos, where the holy cave is the original sanctuary. 
For this was a place of worship which the Greeks took over from the 
Pheenicians. 


LECT, V. SACRIFICIAL STONES 201 


detail in the mode of presentation and. does not affect the 
essence of the sacrificial act. In either case the offering 
consists of food, “the bread of God” as it is called in the 
Hebrew ritual,! and there is no real difference between a 
table and altar. Indeed the Hebrew altar of burnt- 
offering is called the table of the Lord, while conversely 
the table of shewbread is called an altar.” 

The table is not a very primitive article of furniture? 
and this circumstance alone is enough to lead us to suspect 
that the altar was not originally a raised platform on 
which a sacrificial meal could be set forth. In Arabia, 
where sacrifice by fire is almost unknown, we find no 
proper altar, but in its place a rude pillar or heap of 
stones, beside which the victim is slain, the blood being 
poured out over the stone or at its base* This ritual of 
the blood is the essence of the offering; no part of the 
flesh falls as a rule to the god, but the whole is distributed 
among the men who assist at the sacrifice. The sacred 
stones, which are already mentioned by Herodotus, are 
called ansab (sing. nosh), z.e. stones set up, pillars. We 
also find the name ghariy, “ blood-bedaubed,” with reference 
to the ritual just described. The meaning of this ritual 
will occupy us later; meantime the thing to be noted 
is that the altar is only a modification of the nosb, and 
that the rude Arabian usage is the primitive type out 
of which all the elaborate altar ceremonies of the more 
cultivated Semites grew. Whatever else was done in 
connection with a sacrifice, the primitive rite of sprinkling 


1 Lev. xxi. 8, 17, etc.; cf. Lev. iii. 11. 

2 Mal.i. 7,12; Ezek. xli. 22 ; cf. Wellhausen, Prolegomena (Eng.), p. 71. 
The same word (71) is used of setting a table and disposing the pieces of 
the sacrifice on the fire-altar. 

3 The old Arabian sofra is merely a skin spread on the ground, not a 
raised table. Cf. H. Bi. col. 2991. 

4 Wellhausen, Heid. pp. 43, 101, 116; cf. Kinship, p. 258. 


202 ALTARS AND LECT. V. 


or dashing the blood against the altar, or allowing it to 
flow down on the ground at its base, was hardly ever 
omitted;! and this practice was not peculiar to the 
Semites, but was equally the rule with the Greeks 
and Romans, and indeed with the ancient nations 
generally. 

As regards fire sacrifices, we shall find reason to doubt 
whether the hearth on which the sacred flesh was con- 
sumed was originally identical with the sacred stone or 
cairn over which the sacrificial blood was allowed to flow. 
It seems probable, for reasons that cannot be stated at 
this point, that the more modern form of altar, which 
could be used both for the ritual of the blood and as a 
sacred hearth, was reached by combining two operations 
which originally took place apart. But in any case it is 
certain that the original altar among the northern Semites, 
as well as among the Arabs, was a great stone or cairn 
at which the blood of the victim was shed. At Jacob’s 
covenant with Laban no other altar appears than the 
cairn of stones beside which the parties to the compact 
ate together; in the ancient law of Ex. xx. 24, 25, it is 
prescribed that the altar must be of earth or of unhewn 
stone; and that a single stone sufficed appears from 
1 Sam. xiv. 32 sqq., where the first altar built by Saul is 
simply the great stone which he caused to be rolled unto 
him after the battle of Michmash, that the people might 
slay their booty of sheep and cattle at it, and not eat the 
flesh with the blood. The simple shedding of the blood by 


1 There were indeed altars at which no animal sacrifices were presented. 
Such are, among the Hebrews, the altar of incense and the table of shew- 
bread, and among the Pheenicians the altar at Paphos (Tac., Hist. ii. 8) ; 
perhaps also the ‘‘altar of the pious” at Delos (Porph., De Abst. ii. 28) was 
of Phenician origin. In later times certain exceptional sacrifices were 
burned alive or slain without effusion of blood, but this does not touch the 
general principle. 


LECT. VY. | SACRIFICIAL STONES 203 


the stone or altar consecrated the slaughter and made it a 
legitimate sacrifice. Here, therefore, there is no difference 
between the Hebrew altar and the Arabian nosb or ghariy. 

Monolithic pillars or cairns of stone are frequently 
mentioned in the more ancient parts of the Old Testament 
as standing at sanctuaries! generally in connection with 
a sacred legend about the occasion on which they were 
set up by some famous patriarch or hero. In the biblical 
story they usually appear as mere memorial structures 
without any definite ritual significance; but the penta- 
teuchal law looks on the use of sacred pillars (masséboth) as 
idolatrous.? This is the best evidence that such pillars 
had an important place among the appurtenances of 
Canaanite temples, and as Hosea (ili. 4) speaks of the 
masséba as an indispensable feature in the sanctuaries 
of northern Israel in his time, we may be sure that by 
the mass of the Hebrews the pillars of Shechem, Bethel, 
Gilgal and other shrines were looked upon not as mere 
memorials of historical events, but as necessary parts 
of the ritual apparatus of a place of worship. That the 
special ritual acts connected with the Canaanite masséba 
were essentially the same as in the case of the Arabian 
mnosb may be gathered from Philo Byblius, who, in his 
pseudo-historical manner, speaks of a certain Usous who 
consecrated two pillars to fire and wind, and paid worship 
to them, pouring out libations to them of the blood of 
beasts taken in hunting*® From these evidences, and 
especially from the fact that libations of the same kind 


1 At Shechem, Josh. xxiv. 26; Bethel, Gen. xxviii. 18 sgq.; Gilead, 
{Ramoth-gilead), Gen. xxxi. 45 sqq.; Gilgal, Josh. iv. 5; Mizpah, 1 Sam. 
vii. 12; Gibeon, 2 Sam. xx. 8; En-rogel, 1 Kings i. 9. 

2 Ex. xxxiv. 13; Deut. xii. 8; cf. Mic. v. 13 (12). For pillars A.V. 
generally gives, incorrectly, ‘ images.” 

3 Euseb. Prep. Ev. i. 10. 10. Libations of blood are mentioned as a 
heathenish rite in Ps. xvi. 4. 


204 THE HEBREW LECT. V. 


are applied to both, it seems clear that the altar is a 
differentiated form of the primitive rude stone pillar, the 
nosb or masséba.' But the sacred stone is more than an altar, 
for in Hebrew and Canaanite sanctuaries the altar, in its 
developed form as a table or hearth, does not supersede 
the pillar; the two are found side by side at the same 
sanctuary, the altar as a piece of sacrificial apparatus, and 
the pillar as a visible symbol or embodiment of the presence 
of the deity, which in process of time comes to be fashioned 
and carved in various ways, till ultimately it becomes a 
statue or anthropomorphic idol of stone, just as the sacred 
tree or post was ultimately developed into an image of 
wood.? 

It has been disputed whether the sacred stone at 
Semitic sanctuaries was from the first an object of 
worship, a sort of rude idol in which the divinity was 
somehow supposed to be present. It is urged that in 
the narratives of Genesis the masstéba is a@ mere mark 
without intrinsic religious significance. But the original 
significance of the patriarchal symbols cannot be concluded 
from the sense put on them by writers who lived many 
centuries after those ancient sanctuaries were first founded; 
and at the time when the oldest of the pentateuchal 
narratives were written, the Canaanites and the great 
mass of the Hebrews certainly treated the masséba as a 
sort of idol or embodiment of the divine presence. More- 
over Jacob’s pillar is more than a mere landmark, for it 
is anointed, just as idols were in antiquity, and the 
pillar itself, not the spot on which it stood, is called 

1 Nosb and masséba are derived from the same root (NSB, ‘‘set up”). 
Another name for the pillar or cairn is 3'¥3, which occurs in place-names, 
both in Canaan and among the Arameans (Nisibis, ‘‘the pillars”). 

* From this point of view the prohibition of a graven image (bpp) in the 


second commandment stands on one line with the prohibition of an altar of 
hewn stone (Ex. xx. 25). 


LECT. V. MASSEBA. 205 


“the house of God,”! as if the deity were conceived 


actually to dwell in the stone, or manifest himself therein 
to his worshippers. And this is the conception which 
appears to have been associated with sacred stones every- 
where. When the Arab daubed blood on the nosb his 
object was to bring the offering into direct contact with 
the deity, and in like manner the practice of stroking the 
sacred stone with the hand is identical with the practice 
of touching or stroking the garments or beard of a man 
in acts of supplication before him.? Here, therefore, the 
sacred stone is altar and idol in one; and so Porphyry 
(De Abst. ii. 56) in his account of the worship of Duma 
in Arabia expressly speaks of “the altar which they use as 
an idol.”? The same conception must have prevailed among 
the Canaanites before altar and pillar were differentiated 
from one another, otherwise the pillar would have been 
simply changed into the more convenient form of an altar, 
and there could have been no reason for retaining both. 
So far as the evidence from tradition and ritual goes, we 
can only think of the sacred stone as consecrated by the 
actual presence of the godhead, so that whatever touched 
it was brought into immediate contact with the deity. 
How such a conception first obtained currency is a matter 
for which no direct evidence is available, and which if 
settled at all can be settled only by inference and con- 
jecture. At the present stage of our inquiry it is not 
possible to touch on this subject except in a provisional 


1 Gen. xxviii. 22. 

2 Wellhausen, p. 109; ibid. p. 56. Conversely a holy person con- 
veys a blessing by the touch of his hand (Ibn Sa‘d, Nos. 90, 130), or 
even by touching something which others touch after him (Ibn Hisham, 
338. 15). 

3 So in the well-known line of Al-A‘sha the god to whom the sacred 
stone belongs is himself said to be mansib, “set up” (Ibn Hish. 256, 8; 
Morg. Forsch. p. 258). The Arabian gods are expressly called “ gods of 
stone ’’ in a verse cited by Ibn Sad, No. 118. 


* 


206 SACRED STONES LECT. Y. 


way. But some things may be said which will at least 
tend to make the problem more definite. 

Let us note then that there are two distinct points to 
be considered—(1) how men came to look on an artificial 
structure as the symbol or abode of the god, (2) why the 
particular artificial structure is a stone or a cairn of stones. 

(1.) In tree worship and in the worship of fountains 
adoration is paid to a thing which man did not make, 
which has an independent life, and properties such as to 
the savage imagination may well appear to be divine. 
On the same analogy one can understand how natural 
rocks and boulders, suited by their size and aspect to affect 
the savage imagination, have acquired in various parts of 
the world the reputation of being animated objects with 
power to help and hurt man, and so have come to receive 
religious worship. But the worship of artificial pillars 
and cairns of stones, chosen at random and set up by man’s 
hand, is a very different thing from’ this. Of course not 
the rudest savage believes that in setting up a sacred stone 
he is making a new god; what he does believe is that the 
god comes into the stone, dwells in it or animates it, so 
that for practical purposes the stone is thenceforth an 
embodiment of the god, and may be spoken of and dealt 
with as if it were the god himself. But there is an 
enormous difference between worshipping the god in his 
natural embodiment, such as a tree or some notable rock, 
and persuading him to come and take for his embodiment 
a structure set up for him by the worshipper. From the 
metaphysical point of view, which we are always tempted 
to apply to ancient religion, the worship of stocks and 
stones prepared by man’s hand seems to be a much cruder 
thing than the worship of natural life as displayed in a 
fountain or a secular tree; but practically the idea that 
the godhead consents to be present in a structure set for 


LECT. V. SACRED STONES 207 
him by his worshippers implies a degree of intimacy and 
permanency in the relations between man and the being 
he adores which marks an advance on the worship of 
natural objects. It is true that the rule of Semitic 
worship is that the artificial symbol can only be set up 
in a place already consecrated by tokens of the divine 
presence; but the sacred stone is not merely a token that 
the place is frequented by a god, it is also a permanent 
pledge that in this place he consents to enter into stated 
relations with men and accept their service. 

(2.) That deities like those of ancient heathenism, which 
were not supposed to be omnipresent, and which were 
commonly thought of as having some sort of corporeal 
nature, could enter into a stone for the convenience of 
their worshippers, seems to us a fundamental difficulty, 
but was hardly a difficulty that would be felt by primitive 
man, who has most elastic conceptions of what is possible. 
When we speak of an idol we generally think of an image 
presenting a likeness of the god, because our knowledge of 
heathenism is mainly drawn from races which had made 
some advance in the plastic arts, and used idols shaped in 
such a way as to suggest the appearance and attributes 
which legend ascribed to each particular deity. But there 
is no reason in the nature of things why the physical 
embodiment which the deity assumes for the convenience 
of his worshipper should be a copy of his proper form, and 
in the earliest times to which the worship of sacred stones 
goes back there was evidently no attempt to make the 
idol a simulacrum. A cairn or rude stone pillar is not a 
portrait of anything, and I take it that we shall go on 
altogether false lines if we try to explain its selection as a 
divine symbol by any consideration of what it looks like. 
Even when the arts had made considerable progress the 
Semites felt no need to fashion their sacred symbols into 


208 SACRED STONES LECT. Vv. 


likenesses of the gods. Melcarth was worshipped at Tyre 
in the form of two pillars, and at the great temple of 
Paphos, down to Roman times, the idol was not an 
anthropomorphic image of Astarte, but a conical stone.” 
These antique forms were not retained from want of 
plastic skill, or because there were not well-known types 
on which images of the various gods could be and often 
were constructed ; for we see from the second command- 
ment that likenesses of things celestial terrestrial and 
aquatic were objects of worship in Canaan from a very 
early date. It was simply not thought necessary that the 
symbol in which the divinity was present should be like 
the god. 

Phoenician votive cippi were often adorned with rude 
figures of men, animals and the like, as may be seen in the 
series of such monuments dedicated to Tanith and Baal 
Hamman which are depicted in the Corpus Inser. Sem. 
These figures, which are often little better than hierogly- 
phics, served, like the accompanying inscriptions, to indicate 
the meaning of the cippus and the deity to which it was 
devoted. An image in like manner declares its own 
meaning better than a mere pillar, but the chief idol of a 
great sanctuary did not require to be explained in this 
way ; its position showed what it was without either figure 
or inscription. It is probable that among the Phoenicians 
and Hebrews, as among the Arabs at the time of Mohammed, 
portrait images, such as are spoken of in the second com- 


1 Herod. ii. 44. Twin pillars stood also before the temples of Paphos 
and Hierapolis, and Solomon set up two brazen pillars before his temple at 
Jerusalem (1 Kings vii. 15, 21). As he named them ‘‘The stablisher” and 
‘*In him is strength,” they were doubtless symbols of Jehovah. 

2Tac., Hist. ii. 2. Other examples are the cone of Elagabalus at Emesa 
(Herodian, v. 3. 5) and that of Zeus Casius. More in Zoega, De obeliscis, 
p. 208. The cone at Emesa was believed to have fallen from heaven, 
like the idol of Artemis at Ephesus and other ancient and very sacred 
idols. 


LECT. V. AND FETICH WORSHIP 209 


mandment, were mainly small gods for private use For 
public sanctuaries the second pillar or ashera sufficed. 

The worship of sacred stones is often spoken of as 
if it belonged to a distinctly lower type of religion than 
the worship of images. It is called fetichism—a merely 
popular term, which conveys no precise idea, but is vaguely 
supposed to mean something very savage and contemptible. 
And no doubt the worship of unshapen blocks is from the 
artistic point of view a very poor thing, but from a purely 
religious point of view its inferiority to image worship is 
not so evident. The host in the mass is artistically as 
much inferior to the Venus of Milo as a Semitic masséba 
was, but no one will say that medieval Christianity is 
a lower form of religion than Aphrodite worship. What 
seems to be implied when sacred stones are spoken of as 
fetiches is that they date from a time when stones were 
regarded as the natural embodiment and proper form of 
the gods, not merely as the embodiment which they took 
up in order to receive the homage of their worshippers. 
Such a view, I venture to think, is entirely without 
foundation. Sacred stones are found in all parts of the 
world and in the worship of gods of the most various kinds, 
so that their use must rest on some cause which was 
operative in all primitive religions. But that all or most 
ancient gods were originally gods of stones, inhabiting 
natural rocks or boulders, and that artificial cairns or 
pillars are imitations of these natural objects, is against 
evidence and quite incredible. Among the Semites the 
sacred pillar is universal, but the instances of the 
worship of rocks and stones im situ are neither numerous 


1 Of the common use of such gods every museum supplies evidence, in 
the shape of portable idols and amulets with pictured carving. Compare 
2 Macc. xii. 40, where we read that many of the army of Judas Maccabeus— 
Jews fighting against heathenism—wore under their shirts ispapara rav doe 


"lapvsias siowAwy. 


14 


210 ORIGIN OF LECT. V. 


nor prominent, and the idea of founding a theory of the 
origin of sacred stones in general upon them could hardly 
occur to any one, except on the perfectly gratuitous 
supposition that the idol or symbol must necessarily be 
like the god.? 

The notion that the sacred stone is a simulacrum of 
the god seems also to be excluded by the observation that 
several pillars may stand together as representatives of a 
single deity. Here, indeed, the evidence must be sifted 
with some care, for a god and a goddess were often 
worshipped together, and then each would have a pillar.” 
But this kind of explanation does not cover all the cases. 
In the Arabian rite described in Herod. iii. 8, two deities 
are invoked, but seven sacred stones are anointed with 


1 The stone of al-Lat at Taif, in which the goddess was supposed to dwell, 
is identified by local tradition with a mass which seems to be a natural block 
tn situ, though not one of unusual size or form. See my Kinship, p. 299, 
and Doughty, ii. 515. At ‘Okaz the sacred circle was performed roind 
rocks (sokhir, Yaciit, iii. 705), presumably the remarkable group which I 
described in 1880 in a letter to the Scotsman newspaper. ‘‘In the S.E. 
corner of the small plain, which is barely two miles across, rises a hill of 
loose granite blocks, crowned by an enormous pillar standing quite erect and 
flanked by lower masses. I do not think that this pillar can be less than 
50 or 60 feet in height, and its extraordinary aspect, standing between two 
lesser guards on either side, is the first thing that strikes the eye on nearing 
the plain.” The rock of Dusares, referred to by Steph. Byz., is perhaps the 
cliff with a waterfall which has been already mentioned (supra, p. 168), and — 
so may be compared with the rock at Kadesh from which the fountain 
gushed. The sanctity of rocks from which water flows, or of rocks that 
form a sacred grotto, plainly cannot be used to explain the origin of sacred 
cairns and pillars which have neither water nor cavern. 

That the phrase ‘‘ Rock of Israel,’ applied to Jehovah, has anything to 
do with stone worship may legitimately be doubted. The use of baetylia, 
or small portable stones to which magical life was ascribed, hardly belongs 
to the present argument. The idol Abnil at Nisibis is simply ‘‘ the cippus 
of El” (Assem. i. 27). 

2 Cf. Kinship, pp. 60 n., 299 sqqg. Whether the two ghari at Hira and 
Faid (Wellh. p. 43) belong to a pair of gods, or are a double image of one 
deity, like the twin pillars of Heracles-Melcarth at Tyre, cannot be decided. 
Wellhausen inclines to the latter view, citing Hamdsa, 190. 15. But in 
Arabic idiom the two ‘Ozzas may mean al-Ozzai and her companion 
goddess al-Lat. Mr. C. Lyall suggests the reading ghariyaini. 


LECT. V. SACRED STONES 211 
blood, and a plurality of sacred stones round which the 
worshippers circled in a single act of worship are frequently 
spoken of in Arabian poetry.! Similarly in Canaan the 
place-name Anathoth means images of ‘Anath in the 
plural; and at Gilgal there were twelve sacred pillars 
according to the number of the tweive tribes,? as at Sinai 
twelve pillars were erected at the covenant sacrifice. 
Twin pillars of Melcarth have already been noticed at 
Tyre, and are familiar to us as the “ pillars of Hercules ” 
in connection with the Straits of Gibraltar. 

Another view taken of sacred pillars and cippi is that 
they are images, not of the deity, but of bodily organs 
taken as emblems of particular powers or attributes of 
deity, especially of life-giving and reproductive power. 
I will say something of this theory in a note; but as an 
explanation of the origin of sacred stones it has not even 
a show of plausibility. Men did not begin by worshipping 
emblems of divine powers, they brought their homage and 
offerings to the god himself. If the god was already 
conceived as present in the stone, it was a natural 
exercise of the artistic faculty to put something on the 
stone to indicate the fact; and this something, if the 
god was anthropomorphically conceived, might either be 
a human figure, or merely an indication of important 
parts of the human figure. At Tabala in Arabia, for 

1 Wellh., Herd. p. 102. The poets often seem to identify the god with one 
of the stones, as al- Ozza was identified with one of the three trees at Nakhla. 
The ansab stand beside the god (74, iii. 560, 1. 1) or round him, which 
probably means that the idol proper stood in the midst. In the verse of 
al-Farazdac, Agh. xix. 3, 1. 30, to which Wellhausen calls attention, the Ox- 
ford MS. of the Nacaid and that of the late Spitta-Bey read, ‘ala hint la tuhya 
*l-banatu wa-idh humi ‘ukifun ‘ala ’l-ansabi hawla ’l-mudawwart, and the 
scholia explain al-mudawwar as sanam yadirina hawlahu. It is impossible 
to believe that this distinction between one stone and the rest is primitive. 

2 Josh. iv. 20. These stones are probably identical with the stone-idols 


(A.V. “ quarries ”’) of Judg. iii. 19, 26. 
3 Ex. xxiv. 4. 


212 ORIGIN OF SACRED STONES LECT. V. 
instance, a sort of crown was sculptured on the stone 
of al-Lat to mark her head. In like manner other parts 
of the body may be rudely designated, particularly such 
as distinguish sex. But that the sacred cippus, as such, 
is not a sexual emblem, is plain from the fact that exactly 
the same kind of pillar or cone is used to represent gods 
and goddesses indifferently. 

On a review of all these theories it seems most 
probable that the choice of a pillar or cairn as the 
primitive idol was not dictated by any other considera- 
tion than convenience for ritual purposes. The stone 
or stone-heap was a convenient mark of the proper place 
of sacrifice, and at the same time, if the deity consented 
to be present at it, provided the means for carrying out 
the ritual of the sacrificial blood. Further than this it 
does not seem possible to go, till we know why it was 
thought so essential to bring the blood into immediate 
contact with the god adored. This question belongs to 
the subject of sacrifice, which I propose to commence in 
the next lecture.? 

1See Additional Note D, Phallic Symbols. 

2 One or two isolated statements about sacred stones, not sufficiently 
important or well attested to be mentioned in the text, may deserve citation 
ina note. Pliny, H. N. xxxvii. 161, speaks of an ordeal at the temple of 
Melcarth at Tyre by sitting on a stone seat, ex qua pi facile surgebant.— 
Yacit, iii. 760, has a very curious account of a stone like a landmark near 
Aleppo. When it was thrown down the women of the adjoining villages 
were seized by a shameful frenzy, which ceased when it was set up again. 
Yaciit had this by very fornial written attestation from persons he names ; 


but failed to obtain confirmation of the story on making personal inquiry at 
Aleppo. 


LECTURE VI 
SACRIFICE—PRELIMINARY SURVEY 


WE have seen in the course of the last lecture that the 
practices of ancient religion required a fixed meeting-place 
between the worshippers and their god. The choice of 
such a place is determined in the first instance by the 
consideration that certain spots are the natural haunts of 
a deity, and therefore holy ground. But for most rituals 
it is not sufficient that the worshipper should present his 
service on holy ground: it is necessary that he should 
come into contact with the god himself, and this he 
believes himself to do when he directs his homage to a 
natural object, like a tree or a sacred fountain, which 
is believed to be the actual seat of the god and embodi- 
ment of a divine life, or when he draws near to an 
artificial mark of the immediate presence of the deity. 
In the oldest forms of Semitic religion this mark is a 
sacred stone, which is at once idol and altar; in later 
times the idol and the altar stand side by side, and the 
original functions of the sacred stone are divided between 
them ; the idol represents the presence of the god, and the 
altar serves to receive the gifts of the worshipper. Both 
are necessary to constitute a complete sanctuary, because 
a complete act of worship implies not merely that the 
worshipper comes into the presence of his god with gestures 
of homage and words of prayer, but also that he lays before 


the deity some material oblation. In antiquity an act of 
213 


214 THE LEVITICAL LECT. V1. 
worship was a formal operation in which certain prescribed 
rites and ceremonies must be duly observed. And among 
these the oblation at the altar had so central a place that 
among the Greeks and Romans the words ‘epovpyia and 
sacryfictum, which in their primary application denote 
any action within the sphere of things sacred to the gods, 
and so cover the whole field of ritual, were habitually used, 
like our English word sacrifice, of those oblations at the 
altar round which all other parts of ritual turned. In 
English idiom there is a further tendency to narrow the 
word sacrifice to such oblations as involve the slaughter 
of a victim. In the Authorised Version of the Bible 
“sacrifice and offering” is the usual translation of the 
Hebrew zébah uminia, that is, “bloody and _ bloodless 
oblations.” For the purposes of the present discussion, 
however, it seems best to include both kinds of oblation 
under the term “sacrifice”; for a comprehensive term is 
necessary, and the word “ offering,” which naturally sug- 
gests itself as an alternative, is somewhat too wide, as it 
may properly include not only sacrifices but votive offerings, 
of treasure images and the like, which form a distinct 
class from offerings at the altar. 

Why sacrifice is the typical form of all complete acts 
of worship in the antique religions, and what the sacrificial 
act means, is an involved and difficult problem. The 
problem does not belong to any one religion, for sacrifice 
is equally important among all early peoples in all parts 
of the world where religious ritual has reached any con- 
siderable development. Here, therefore, we have to deal 
with an institution that must have been shaped by the 
action of general causes, operating very widely and under 
conditions that were common in primitive times to all 
races of mankind. To construct a theory of sacrifice 
exclusively on the Semitic evidence would be unscientific 


; 


LECT. VI. SACRIFICES 215 


and misleading, but for the present purpose it is right to 

put the facts attested for the Semitic peoples in the fore- 

ground, and to call in the sacrifices of other nations to 
confirm or modify the conclusions to which we are led. 

For some of the main aspects of the subject the Semitic 
: evidence is very full and clear, for others it is fragmentary 
: and unintelligible without help from what is known about 
other rituals. 

Unfortunately the only system of Semitic sacrifice of 
which we possess & full account is that of the second 
temple at Jerusalem ;+ and though the ritual of Jerusalem 
as described in the Book of Leviticus is undoubtedly based 
on very ancient tradition, going back to a time when there 
was no substantial difference, in point of form, between 


( 
5 
; 
\ 
: 
f 
i 
| 


Hebrew sacrifices and those of the surrounding nations, the 
system as we have it dates from a time when sacrifice was 
no longer the sum and substance of worship. In the long 
years of Babylonian exile the Israelites who remained true 
to the faith of Jehovah had learned to draw nigh to their 
God without the aid of sacrifice and offering, and, when 
they returned to Canaan, they did not return to the old 


1The detailed ritual laws of the Pentateuch belong to the post-exilic 
document commonly called the Priestly Code, which was adopted as the 
law of Israel’s religion at Ezra’s reformation (444 B.c.). To the Priestly 
Code belong the Book of Leviticus, together with the cognate parts of the 
adjacent Books, Ex. xxv.-xxxi., xxxv.-xl., and Num. i.-x., xv.-xix., 
XXV.-xxxvi. (with some inconsiderable exceptions). With the Code is 
associated an account of the sacred history from Adam to Joshua, and some 
ritual matter is found in the historical sections of the work, especially in 
Ex. xii., where the law of the Passover is mainly priestly, and represents 
post-exilic usage. The law of Deuteronomy (seventh cent. B.c.) and the 
older codes of Ex. xx.-xxiii., xxxiv., have little to say about the rules of 
ritual, which in old times were matters of priestly tradition and not incor- 
porated in a law-book. A just view of the sequence and dates of the several 
parts of the Pentateuch is essential to the historical study of Hebrew religion. 
Readers to whom this subject is new may refer to Wellhausen’s Prolegomena 
(Eng. trans., Edin. 1883), to the article ‘‘ Pentateuch,” Hncycl. Brit., 9th * 
ed., to my Old Test. in the Jewish Church (2nd ed. 1892), or to Professor 
Driver’s Jntroduction. 


216 THE LEVITICAL LECT. VI, 


type of religion. They built an altar, indeed, and restored 
its ritual on the lines of old tradition, so far as these could 
be reconciled with the teaching of the prophets and the 
Deuteronomic law—especially with the principle that there 
was but one sanctuary at which sacrifice could be accept- — 
ably offered. But this principle itself was entirely 
destructive of the old importance of sacrifice, as the stated 
means of converse between God and man. Im the old 
time every town had its altar, and a visit to the local 
sanctuary was the easy and obvious way of consecrating 
every important act of life. No such interweaving of 
sacrificial service with everyday religion was possible 
under the new law, nor was anything of the kind at- 
tempted. The worship of the second temple was an 
antiquarian resuscitation of forms which had lost their 
intimate connection with the national life, and therefore 
had lost the greater part of their original significance. 
The Book of Leviticus, with all its fulness of ritual detail, 
does not furnish any clear idea of the place which each 
kind of altar service held in the old religion, when all 
worship took the form of sacrifice. And in some parti- 
culars there is reason to believe that the desire to avoid 
all heathenism, the necessity for giving expression to new 
religious ideas, and the growing tendency to keep the 
people as far as possible from the altar and make sacrifice 
the business of a priestly caste, had introduced into the 
ritual features unknown to more ancient practice. 

The three main types of sacrifice recognised by the 
Levitical law are the whole burnt-offering (dla), the 
sacrifice followed by a meal of which the flesh of the victim 
formed the staple (shéem, zébah), and the sin-offering 
(hattath), with an obscure variety of the last named called 
asham (A.V. “ trespass-offering ”). Of these ‘dla and zébah 
are frequently mentioned in the older literature, and they 


LECT. VI. SACRIFICES 217 


are often spoken of together, as if, all animal sacrifices 
fell under one or the other head. The use of sacrifice as 
an atonement for sin is also recognised in the old literature, 
especially in the case of the burnt-offering, but there is 
little or no trace of a special kind of offering appropriated 
for this purpose before the time of Ezekiel! The formal 
distinctions with regard to Hebrew sacrifices that can be 
clearly made out from the pre-exilic literature are— 

(1) The distinction between animal and vegetable 
oblations, 2ébah and minha). 

(2) The distinction between offerings that were consumed 
by fire and such as were merely set forth on the sacred 
table (the shewbread). 

(3) The distinction between sacrifices in which the 
consecrated gift is wholly made over to the god, to be 
consumed on the altar or otherwise disposed of in his 
service, and those at which the god and his worshippers 
partake together in the consecrated thing. To the latter 
class belong the zebahim, or ordinary animal sacrifices, in 
which a victim is slain, its blood poured out at the altar, 
and the fat of the intestines with certain other pieces 
burned, while the greater part of the flesh is left to the 
offerer to form the material of a sacrificial banquet. 

These three distinctions, which are undoubtedly ancient, 
and applicable to the sacrifices of other Semitic nations, 
suggest three heads under which a preliminary survey of 
the subject may be conveniently arranged. But not till 
we reach the third head shall we find ourselves brought 
face to face with the deeper aspects of the problem of the 
origin and significance of sacrificial worship. 

1See Wellhausen, Prolegomena, chap. ii. The Hebrew designations of 
the species of sacrifices are to be compared with those on the Carthaginian 
tables of fees paid to priests for the various kinds of offerings, CS. Nos. 


165, 164 sqq., but the information given in these is so fragmentary that it ig 
difficult to make much of it. See below, p. 237 n, 


218 THE MATERIAL LECT. VI. 

1. The material of sacrifice. The division of sacrifices 
into animal and vegetable offerings involves the principle 
that sacrifices—as distinct from votive offerings of garments, 
weapons, treasure and the lke—are drawn from edible 
substances, and indeed from such substances as form the 
ordinary staple of human food. The last statement is 
strictly true of the Levitical ritual; but, so far as the 
flesh of animals is concerned, it was subject, even in the 
later heathen rituals, to certain rare but important excep- 
tions, unclean or sacred animals, whose flesh was ordinarily 
forbidden to men, being offered and eaten sacramentally on 
very solemn occasions. We shall see by and by that in 
the earliest times these extraordinary sacrifices had a very 
great importance in ritual, and that on them depends the 
theory of the oldest sacrificial meals; but, as regards later 
times, the Hebrew sacrifices are sufficiently typical of the 
ordinary usage of the Semites generally. The four-footed 
animals from which the Levitical law allows victims to he 
selected are the ox the sheep and the goat, that is, the 
“clean” domestic quadrupeds which men were allowed to 
eat. The same quadrupeds are named upon the Cartha- 
ginian inscriptions that give the tariff of sacrificial fees to 
be paid at the temple,’ and in Lucian’s account of the 
Syrian ritual at Hierapolis.2 The Israelites neither ate nor 
sacrificed camels, but among the Arabs the camel was 
common food and a common offering. The swine, on the 
other hand, which was commonly sacrificed and eaten in 
Greece, was forbidden food to all the Semites,? and occurs 
as a sacrifice only in certain exceptional rites of the kind 
already alluded to. Deer, gazelles and other kinds of 
game were eaten by the Hebrews, but not sacrificed, and 
from Deut. xii. 16 we may conclude that this was an 


1 CTS. Nos. 165, 167. 2 Dea Syria, liv. 
3 Lucian, wt sup. (Syrians) ; Sozomen, vi. 38 (all Saracens), 


nT 


a a ae ie ee ee a ee 


LECT. VI. OF SACRIFICE 219 


ant et eR TO 


ancient rule. Among the Arabs, in ike manner, a gazelle 
was regarded as an imperfect oblation, a shabby substitute 
for a sheep.1 As regards birds, the Levitical law admits 
pigeons and turtle-doves, but only as holocausts and in 
certain purificatory ceremonies.?— Birds seem also to be 
mentioned in the Carthaginian sacrificial lists; what is 
said of them is very obscure, but it would appear that they 
might be used either for ordinary sacrifices (shelem kalil) 
or for special purposes piacular and oracular. That the 
quail was sacrificed to the Tyrian Baal appears from 
Atheneeus, ix. 47, p. 392d. See p. 469. 

Fish were eaten by the Israelites, but not sacrificed ; 
among their heathen neighbours, on the contrary, fish—or 
certain kinds of fish—were forbidden food, and were sacri- 
ficed only in exceptional cases.’ 

Among the Hebrew offerings from the Yexotable king- 
dom, meal wine and oil take the chief place,* and these were 
also the chief vegetable constituents of man’s daily food.° 


1 Wellh. p. 118; Hiarith, Mo‘all. 69; especially Lisdn, vi. 211. The 
reason of this rule, and certain exceptions, will appear in the sequel. 

2 Lev. i. 14, xii. 6, 8, xiv. 22, xv. 14, 29; Num. vi. 10. Two birds, 
of which one is slain and its blood used for lustration, appear also in the 
ritual for cleansing a leper, or a house that has been affected with leprosy 
(Lev. xiv. 4 sg., 49 sq.). Further, the turtle-dove and nestling (pigeon) 
appear in an ancient covenant ceremony (Gen. xv. 9 sqq.). The fact that 
the dove was not used by the Hebrews for any ordinary sacrifice, involving a 
sacrificial meal, can hardly be, in its origin, independent of the sacrosanct 
character ascribed to this bird in the religion of the heathen Semites. The 
Syrians would not eat doves, and their very touch made a man unclean for 
a day (Dea Syria, liv,). In Palestine also the dove was sacred with the 
Pheenicians and Philistines, and on this superstition is based the common 
Jewish accusation against the Samaritans, that they were worshippers of the 
dove (see for all this Bochart, Hierozoicon, II. i. 1). Nay, sacred doves that 
may not be harmed are found even at Mecca. In legal times the dove was 
of course a ‘‘clean” bird to the Hebrews, but it is somewhat remarkable 
that we never read of it in the Old Testament as an article of diet-—not even 
in 1 Kings v. 2 sgg. (A.V. iv. 22 sgqg.)—though it is now one of the 
commonest table-birds all over the East. 

* See below, p. 292 sq. *Cf. Mic. vi. 7 with Lev. ii. 1 sgq. 

© Ps. civ. 14 sq. 


220 THE MATERIAL LECT. V1. 


In the lands of the olive, oil takes the place that butter 
and other animal fats hold among northern nations, and 
accordingly among the Hebrews, and seemingly also 
among the Pheenicians,! it was customary to mingle oil 
with the cereal oblation before it was placed upon the 
altar, in conformity with the usage at ordinary meals. 
In like manner no cereal offering was complete without 
salt,? which, for physiological reasons, is a necessary of life 
to all who use a cereal diet, though among nations that 
live exclusively on flesh and milk it is not indispensable 
and is often dispensed with. Wine, which as Jotham’s 
parable has it, “cheereth gods and men,”? was added to 
whole burnt-offerings and to the oblation of victims of 
whose flesh the worshippers partook. The sacrificial use 
of wine, without which no feast was complete, seems to have 
been well-nigh universal wherever the grape was kncwn,’ 


and even penetrated to Arabia, where wine was a scarce 
and costly luxury imported from abroad. Milk, on the 
other hand, though one of the commonest articles of food 
among the Israelites, has no place in Hebrew sacrifice, but 
libations of milk were offered by the Arabs, and also at 
Carthage® Their absence among the Hebrews may 
perhaps be explained by the rule of Ex. xxiii, 18, Lev. 
ii. 11, which excludes all ferments from presentation at 
the altar; for in hot climates milk ferments rapidly and 
is generally eaten sour.’ The same principle covers the 


1In CIS. No. 165, 1. 14, the S65 is to be interpreted by the aid of 
Lev. vii. 10, and understood of bread or meal moistened with oil. 

2 Lev. ii. 13. 3 Judg. ix. 18. 4 Num. xv. 5. 

5 For some exceptions see Aesch., Hum. 107 ; Soph., Oed. Col. 100, with 
Schol. ; Paus. ii. 11. 4; v. 15. 10 (Greek libations to the Eumenides and to 
the Nymphs) ; and Athen. xv. 48 (libations to the sun at Emesa), 

6 Wellh. p. 114 sg.; CIS. No. 165, 1. 14; No. 167, 1. 10, 

7 The rule against offering fermented things on the altar was not observed 
in northern Israel in all forms of sacrifice (Amos iv. 5), and traces of greater 
freedom in this respect appear also in Lev. vii. 18, xxiii. 17. It seems 
strange that wine should be admitted in sacrifice and leaven excluded, for 


sae ee Cm. ee 


—— 


eS ree Oe 


LECT. VI. OF SACRIFICE Bat 


prohibition of “honey,”’! which term, like the modern 
Arabic dibs, appears to include fruit juice inspissated by 
boiling—a very important article of food in modern and 
presumably in ancient Palestine. Fruit in its natural 
state, however, was offered at Carthage and was probably 
admitted by the Hebrews in ancient times.’ Among the 


leaven is a product of vinous fermentation, and leavened bread equally with 
wine is to the nomad a foreign luxury (a/-khamr wal-khamir, Agh. xix. 25), 
so that both alike must have been wanting in the oldest type of Hebrew 
sacrifices. Thus the continued prohibition of leaven in sacrifice, after 
wine was admitted, can hardly be regarded as a mere piece of religious 
conservatism, but must have some further significance. It is possible that in 
its oldest form the legal prohibition of leaven applied only to the Passover, 
to which Ex. xxiii. 18, xxxiv. 25, specially refer. In this connection the 
prohibition of leaven is closely associated with the rule that the fat and 
flesh must not remain over till the morning. For we shall find by and by 
that a similar rule applied to certain Saracen sacrifices nearly akin to the 
Passover, which were even eaten raw, and had to be entirely consumed 
before the sun rose. In this case the idea was that the efficacy of the 
sacrifice lay in the living flesh and blood of the victim. Everything of the 
nature of putrefaction was therefore to be avoided, and the connection 
vetween leaven and putrefaction is obvious. 

The only positive law against the sacrificial use of milk is that in Ex. 
xxiii. 19, xxxiv. 26: ‘‘Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.” 
Mother’s milk is simply goat’s milk, which was that generally used (Prov. 
xxvii. 27), and flesh seethed in milk is still a common Arabian dish ; sour 
milk is specified as the kind employed in PEF. Qu. St. 1888, p. 188. 
The context of the passages in Exodus shows that some ancient. form of 
sacrifice is referred to; cf. Judg. vi. 19, where we have a holocaust of sodden 
flesh. A sacrificial gift sodden in sour milk would evidently be of the 
nature of fermented food ; but I do not feel sure that this goes to the root of 
the matter. Many primitive peoples regard milk as a kind of equivalent for 
blood, and thus to eat a kid seethed in its mother’s milk might be taken as 
equivalent to eating ‘‘with the blood,” and be forbidden to the Hebrews 
along with the bloody sacraments of the heathen, of which more hereafter. 

1 Lev. ii. 11. 2 CIS. No. 166. 

8 The term hillilim, applied in Lev. xix. 24 to the consecrated fruit 
borne by a new tree in its fourth year, is applied in Judg. ix. 27 to the 
Canaanite vintage feast at the sanctuary. The Carthaginian fruit-offering 
consisted of a branch bearing fruit, like the ‘‘ethrog” of the modern Jewish 
feast of Tabernacles. The use of ‘‘ goodly fruits” at this festival is ordained 
in Lev. xxiii. 40, but their destination is not specified. In Carthage, 
though the inscription that speaks of the rite is fragmentary, it seems to 
be clear that the fruit was offered at the altar, for incense is mentioned 
with it ; and this, no doubt, is the original sense of the Hebrew rite also. 


* 


* 


* 


222 THE MATERIAL LECT. VI. 
Hebrews vegetable or cereal oblations were sometimes 
presented by themselves, especially in the form of 
first-fruits, but the commonest use of them was as an 
accompaniment to an animal sacrifice. When the Hebrew 
ate flesh, he ate bread with it and drank wine, and when 
he offered flesh on the table of his God, it was natural that 
he should add to it the same concomitants which were 
necessary to make up a comfortable and generous meal. 

Of these various oblations animal sacrifices are by far 
the most important in all the Semitic countries. They 
are in fact the typical sacrifice, so that among the 
Pheenicians the word zébah, which properly means a 
slaughtered victim, is applied even to offerings of bread 
and oil! That cereal offerings have but a secondary 
place in ritual is not unintelligible in connection with 
the history of the Semitic race. For all the Semites 
were originally nomadic, and the ritual of the nemad 
Arabs and the settled Canaanites has so many points in 
common that there can be no question that the main 
lines of sacrificial worship were fixed before any part of 
the Semitic stock had learned agriculture and adopted 
cereal food as its ordinary diet. It must be observed, 
however, that animal food—or at least the flesh of domestic 
animals, which are the only class of victims admitted 
among the Semites as ordinary and regular sacrifices— 
was not a common article of diet even among the 
nomad Arabs. The everyday food of the nomad con- 
sisted of milk, of game, when he could get it, and to a 
limited extent of dates and meal—the latter for the most 
part being attainable only by purchase or robbery. Flesh 


Cf. the raisin-cakes (A.V. ‘‘flagons of wine’’), Hos. iii. 1, which from the 
context appear to be connected with the worship of the Baalim. 

' CIS. No. 165, 1. 12; 167, 1. 9. In the context 7¥ can hardly mean 
geine, but must be taken, as in Josh. ix. 11 sqq., of cereal food, the ordinary 
‘* provision” of agricultural peoples. 


LECT. VI. OF SACRIFICE 925 


of domestic animals was eaten only as a luxury or in 
times of famine.’ If therefore the sole principle that 
governed the choice of the material of sacrifices had been 
that they must consist of human food, milk and not flesh 
would have had the leading place in nomad ritual, whereas 
its real place is exceedingly subordinate. To remove this 
difficulty it may be urged that, as sacrifice is food offered 
to the gods, it ought naturally to be of the best and most 
luxurious kind that can be attained; but on this principle 
it is not easy to see why game should be excluded, for a 
gazelle is not worse food than an old camel.? The true 
solution of the matter lies in another direction. Among 
the Hebrews no sacrificial meal was provided for the 
worshippers unless a victim was sacrificed; if the oblation 
was purely cereal it was wholly consumed either on the 
altar or by the priests, in the holy place, ae. by the 
representatives of the deity. In like manner the only 
Arabian meal-offering about which we have particulars, 
that of the god Ocaisir,£ was laid before the idol in 
handfuls. The poor, however, were allowed to partake 
of it, being viewed no doubt as the guests of the deity. 

1 See the old narratives, passim, and compare Doughty, i. 325 sg. The 
statement of Frankel, Yremdwérter, p. 31, that the Arabs lived maiuly on 
flesh, overlooks the importance of milk as an article of diet among all the 
pastoral tribes, and must also be taken with the qualification that the flesh used 
as ordinary food was that of wild beasts taken in hunting. On this point 
the evidence is clear; Pliny, H. NV. vi. 161, ‘‘nomadas lacte et ferina carne 
uesci’”’; Agatharchides, ap. Diod. Sic. iii. 44. 2; Ammianus, xiv. 4, 6, 
‘‘uictus uniuersis caro ferina est lactisque abundans copia qua sustentantur ” ; 
Nilus, p. 27. By these express statements we must interpret the vaguer 
utterances of Diodorus (xix. 94. 9) and Agatharchides (ap. Diod. iii. 43. 5) 
about the ancient diet of the Nabateans: the ‘‘nourishment supplied by 
their herds” was mainly milk. Certain Arab tribes, like the modern Sleyb, 
had no herds and lived wholly by hunting, and these perhaps are referred 
to in what Agatharchides says of the Banizomenes, and in the Syriac life 
of Simeon Stylites (Assemani, Mart. ii. 345), where, at any rate, besra 
@haiwathéd means game. 

2 Cf. Gen. xxvii. 7. 3 Lev. ii. 3, v. 11, vi. 16 (E.V. 22). 

4 Yacit, s.v.; Wellh. p. 62 sqq. 


224 SACRIFICE AS THE LECT. VI. 
The cereal offering therefore has strictly the character of 
a tribute paid by the worshipper to his god, as indeed is 
expressed by the name minha, whereas when an animal 
is sacrificed, the sacrificer and the deity feast together, part 
of the victim going to each. The predominance assigned in 
ancient ritual to animal sacrifice corresponds to the predomi- 
nance of the type of sacrifice which is not a mere payment 
of tribute but an act of social fellowship between the 
deity and his worshippers. Why this social meal always 
includes the flesh of a victim will be considered in a sub- 
sequent lecture. 

All sacrifices laid upon the altar were taken by the 
ancients as being literally the food of the gods. The 
Homeric deities “feast on hecatombs,”! nay, particular 
Greek gods have special epithets designating them as the 
goat-eater, the ram-eater, the bull-eater, even “the cannibal,” 
with allusion to human sacrifices.2 Among the Hebrews 
the conception that Jehovah eats the flesh of bulls and 
drinks the blood of goats, against which the author of 
Ps. 1. protests so strongly, was never eliminated from 
the ancient technical language of the priestly ritual, in 
which the sacrifices are called ovndy ond, “the food of the 
deity.” In its origin this phrase must belong to the same 
circle of ideas as Jotham’s “ wine which cheereth gods and 
men.” But in the higher forms of heathenism the crass 
materialism of this conception was modified, in the case of 
fire-offerings, by the doctrine that man’s food must be 
etherealised or sublimated into fragrant smoke before the 
gods partake of it. This observation brings us to the 
second of the points which we have noted in connection 
with Hebrew sacrifice, viz. the distinction between sacrifices 
that are merely set forth on the sacred table before the 
deity, and such as are consumed by fire upon the altar. 


1 Tliad, ix. 581. 2 aiyoaryos, xproParyos, ravpoParyes, Arovuros mpenerns, 


LECT. VL FOOD OF THE GODS 225 


2. The table of shewbread has its closest parallel in 
the lectisternia of ancient heathenism, when a table laden 
with meats was spread beside the idol. Such tables were 
set in the great temple of Bel at Babylon,! and, if any 
weight is to be given to the apocryphal story of Bel and 
the Dragon in the Greek Book of Daniel, it was popularly 
believed that the god actually consumed the meal provided 
for him,? a superstition that might easily hold its ground 
by priestly connivance where the table was spread inside 
a temple. A more primitive form of the same kind of 
offering appears in Arabia, where the meal-offering to 
Ocaisir is cast by handfuls at the foot of the idol mingled 
with the hair of the worshipper, and milk is poured over 
the sacred stones. A narrative of somewhat apocryphal 
colour, given without reference to his authority by Sprenger, 
has it that in the worship of “Amm-anas in Southern 
Arabia, whole hecatombs were slaughtered and left to be 
devoured by wild beasts. Apart from the exaggeration, 
there may be something in this; for the idea that sacred 
animals are the guests or clients of the god is not alien 
to Arabian thought,’ and to feed them is an act of religion 


1 Herod. i. 181, 183; Diod. Sic. ii. 9. 7. 

2 The story, so far as it has a basis in actual superstition, is probably 
drawn from Egyptian beliefs ; but in such matters Egypt and Babylon were 
much alike; Herod. i. 182. 

3 The same thing probably applies to other Arabian meal-offerings, e.g, 
the wheat and barley offered to Al-Kholasa (Azraci, p. 78). As the dove 
was the sacred bird at Mecca, the epithet Mof‘im al-tair, ‘‘he who feeds the * 
birds,” applied to the idol that stood upon Marwa (ibid.), seems to point to 
similar meal-offerings rather than to animal victims left lying before the 
god. The ‘‘idol” made of hais, i.e. a mass of dates kneaded up with 
butter and sour milk, which the B. Hanifa ate up in time of famine (see 
the Lewz. s.v. dclsj ; Ibn Coteiba, ed. Wiist. p. 299 ; Birini, Chron. p. 210), 


probably belonged to the widespread class of cereal offerings, shaped as 
rude idols and eaten sacramentally (Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p, 436 ; 
ZDMG. xxx. 589). 

* Leb. Moh. iii. 457. 

5 See above, p. 142 sqgg., and the god-name Motim al-tair in the last 


15 


226 OBLATIONS TO ANIMALS LECT. VI. 


in many heathen systems, especially where, as in Egypt, 
the gods themselves are totem-deities, 2.¢. personifications 
or individual representations of the sacred character and 
attributes which, in the purely totem stage of religion, 
were ascribed without distinction to all animals of the 
holy kind. Thus at Cynopolis in Egypt, where dogs were 
honoured and fed with sacred food, the local deity was the 
divine dog Anubis, and similarly in Greece, at the sanctuary 
of the Wolf Apollo (Apollo Lycius) of Sicyon, an old tradi- 
tion preserved—though in a distorted form—the memory of 
a time when flesh used to be set forth for the wolves? It 
is by no means impossible that something of the same sort 
took place at certain Arabian shrines, for we have already 
learned how closely the gods were related to the jinn and 
the jinn to wild animals, and the list of Arabian deities 
includes a Lion-god (Yaghith) and a Vulture-god (Nasr),? 
to whose worship rites like those described by Sprenger 
would be altogether appropriate. 

, But while it cannot be thought impossible that sacri- 
ficial victims were presented on holy ground and left to be 
devoured by wild beasts as the guests or congeners of the 
gods, I confess that there seems to me to be no sufficient 
evidence that such a practice had any considerable place 
in Arabian ritual. The leading idea in the animal sacrifices 
of the Semites, as we shall see by and by, was not that of 
a gift made over to the god, but of an act of communion, 


note but one; also Hamdani’s account of the offerings at Sawid, supra, 
p. 177. 

1 Strabo, xvii. 1. 39 sg. (p. 812). 

2 Pausanias, ii. 9. 7. The later rationalism which changed the Wolf-god 
into a Wolf-slayer gave the story a corresponding twist by relating that the 
flesh was poisoned, under the god’s directions, with the leaves of a tree whose 
trunk was preserved in the temple, like the sacred erica at Byblus. 

3 See Kinship, pp. 223, 242; Noldeke, ZDMG. 1886, p. 186. See also, 
for the Himyarite Vulture-god, 7DMG. xxix. 600, and compare the eagle 
standard of Morra, Nabigha, iv. 7, Ahlw. =xxi. 7, Der. 


LECT. VI. SIMILAR OBLATIONS Bat 


in which the god and his worshippers unite by partaking 
together of the flesh and blood of a sacred victim. It 
is true that in the case of certain very solemn sacrifices, 
especially of piacula, to which class the sacrifices cited by 
Sprenger appear to belong, the victim sometimes came to 
be regarded as so sacred that the worshippers did not 
venture to eat of it at all, but that the flesh was burned 
or buried or otherwise disposed of in a way that secured it 
from profanation; and among the Arabs, who did not use 
burning except in the case of human sacrifices, we can 
quite well understand that one way of disposing of holy 
flesh might be to leave it to be eaten by the sacred animals 
of the god. Or again, when a sacrifice is expressly offered 
aS a ransom, as in the case of the hundred camels with 
which ‘Abd-al-Mottalib redeemed his vow to sacrifice his 
son, it is intelligible that the offerer reserves no part of 
the flesh, but leaves it to anyone who chooses to help 
himself; or even (according to another reading) leaves it 
free to man and beast.1 On the whole, however, all the 
well-authenticated accounts of Arabian sacrifice seem to 
indicate that the original principle, that the worshippers 
must actually eat of the sacred flesh, was very rigorously 
held to.2 Wellhausen indeed is disposed to think that the 
practice of slaughtering animals and leaving them beside 
the altar to be devoured by wild beasts was not confined 
to certain exceptional cults, but prevailed generally in the 
case of the ‘atdir (sing. ‘atira) or annual sacrifices pre- 
sented by the Arabs in the month Rajab, which originally 
corresponded to the Hebrew Passover-month (Abib, Nisan).? 

‘ lbn Hish. p. 100, 1.7; Tabari, i. 1078,1.4. (Wellh. 116.) 

2 The evidence of Nilus is very important in this connection ; for the 
interval between his time and that of the oldest native traditions is scarcely 
sufficient to allow for the development of an extensive system of sacrifice 


without a sacrificial meal; infra, p. 338. 
® Cf. Wellh.! p. 94 sq., 2 98 sg. To complete the parallelism of the Passover 


228 THE ARABIAN LECT. VL 


“Tt is remarkable,” says Wellhausen, “ how often we hear 
of the ‘atair lying round the altar-idol, and sometimes in 
poetical comparisons the slain are said to be left lying on 
the battlefield like ‘atair.”1 But on the Arabian method 
of sacrifice the carcases of the victims naturally lie on 
the ground, beside the sacred stone, till the blood, which is 
the god’s portion, has drained into the ghabghab, or pit, at 
its foot, and till all the other ritual prescriptions have 
been fulfilled. Thus at a great feast when many victims 
were offered together, the scene would resemble a battle- 
field; indeed, it is impossible to imagine a more disgusting 
scene of carnage than is still presented every year at 
Mina on the great day of sacrifice, when the ground is 
literally covered with innumerable carcases. It is not 
therefore necessary to suppose that the ‘atair at Rajab 
were left to the hyena and the vulture; and, as the name 
atira seems to be also used in a more general sense of 
any victim whose blood is applied to the sacred stones at 
the sanctuary, it is hardly to be thought that there was 
anything very exceptional in the form of the Rajab 
ceremony. 

In the higher forms of Semitic heathenism offerings of 
the shewbread type are not very conspicuous; in truth the 
idea that the gods actually consume the solid food deposited 


with the Rajab offerings, Wellhausen desiderates evidence connecting the 
‘atair of Rajab with the sacrifice of firstlings. The traditionists, e.g. 
Bokhari, vi. 207 (at the close of the Kit. al-‘acica), distinguish between 
firstlings (fara‘) and ‘atira, but the line of distinction is not sharp. The 
lexicons apply the name fara’, not only to firstlings sacrificed while their 
flesh was still like glue (Lisdn, x. 120), but also to the sacrifice of one beast 
in a hundred, which is what the scholiast on Harith’s Moal/. 69 understands 
by the ‘atira. Conversely the Zisdn, vi. 210, defines the ‘atira as a first- 
ling (awwal ma& yuntaj) which was sacrificed to the gods. If we could 
accept this statement without reserve, in the general confusion of the later 
Arabs on the subject, it would supply what Wellhausen desiderates. 

1 Wellh.! p. 115, ef. 2.121; cf. the verses cited ibid. pp. 18,61; and, for 
the poetical comparisons, Ibn Hisham, 534. 4; Alcama, vi. 3, Soc. 


LECT. V1. “ATAIR 229 


at their shrines is too crude to subsist without modifica- 
tion beyond the savage state of society; the ritual may 
survive, but the sacrificial gifts, which the god is evidently 
unable to dispose of himself, will come to be the perquisite 
of the priests, as in the case of the shewbread, or of the 
poor, as in the meal sacrifice to Ocaisir. In such cases 
the actual eating is done by the guests of the deity, but 
the god himself may still be supposed to partake of food 
in a subtle and supersensuous way. It is interesting to 
note the gradations of ritual that correspond to this modi- 
fication of the original idea. 

In the more primitive forms of Semitic religion the 
difficulty of conceiving that the gods actually partake of 
food is partly got over by a predominant use of liquid 
oblations ; for fluid substances, which sink in and disappear, 
are more easily believed to be consumed by the deity than 
obstinate masses of solid matter. 

The libation, which holds quite a secondary place in the 
more advanced Semitic rituals, and is generally a mere 
accessory to a fire offering, has great prominence among the 
Arabs, to whom sacrifices by fire were practically unknown 
except, as we shall see by and by, in the case of human 
sacrifice. Its typical form is the libation of blood, the 
subtle vehicle of the life of the sacrifice; but milk, which 
was used in ritual both by the Arabs and by the Pheni- 
cians, is also no doubt a very ancient Semitic libation. In 
ordinary Arabian sacrifices the blood which was poured 
over the sacred stone was all that fell to the god’s part, the 
whole flesh being consumed by the worshippers and their 
guests; and the early prevalence of this kind of oblation 
appears from the fact that the word  p3, “to pour,” which 
in Hebrew means to pour out a drink-offering, is in Arabic 
the general term for an act of worship. 

In the North Semitic ritual the most notable feature in 


230 LIBATIONS OF LECT. VL 
the libation, which ordinarily consisted of wine, is that it 
was not consumed by fire, even when it went with a fire- 
offering. The Greeks and Romans poured the sacrificial 
wine over the flesh, but the Hebrews treated it like the 
blood, pouring it out at the base of the altar! In Eccle- 
siasticus the wine so treated is even called “the blood of 
the grape,’* from which one is tempted to conclude that 
here also blood is the typical form of libation, and that 
wine is a surrogate for it, as fruit-juice seems to have 
been in certain Arabian rites.* It is true that the blood 
of the sacrifice is not called a libation in Hebrew ritual, 
and in Ps. xvi. 4 “drink-offerings of blood” are spoken 
of as something heathenish. But this proves that such 
libations were known; and that the Hebrew altar ritual of 
the blood is essentially a drink-offering ‘appears from Ps. 
1. 13, where Jehovah asks, “ Will I eat the flesh of bulls 
or drink the blood of goats?” and also from 2 Sam. 
xxiii, 17, where David pours out as a drink-offering the 
water from the well of Bethlehem, refusing to drink “ the 
blood of the men that fetched it in jeopardy of their lives.” 
Putting all this together, and noting also that hbations 
were retained as a chief part of ritual in the domestic 
heathenism of the Hebrew women in the time of Jeremiah,! 
and that private service is often more conservative than 


1 Ecclus. 1. 15; Jos, Andtt. iii. 9.4. Num. xv. 7 is sometimes cited as 
proving that in older times the wine was poured over the sacrificial flesh, 
but see against this interpretation Num. xxviii. 7. 

2 The term aiua Borpdwy occurs in the Tyrian legend of the invention of 
wine, Ach. Tatius, ii. 2, and may possibly be the translation of an old 
Phenician phrase. 

3 Kinship, p. 59n.; Wellh. p. 125. 

4 Jer. xix. 13, xxxii. 29, xliv. 17, 18. With this worship on the house- 
tops, cf. what Strabo, xvi. 4. 26, tells of the daily offerings of libations and 
incense presented to the sun by the Nabatzeans at an altar erected on the 
house-tops. The sacrificial act must be done in the presence of the deity 
(cf. Nilus, pp. 30, 117), and if the sun or the queen of heaven is worshipped, 
a place open to the sky must be chosen. See Wellh. 41. 


LECT. VI. BLOOD AND WINE 231 
public worship, we are led to conclude (1) that the 
libation of blood is a common Semitic practice, older than 
fire-sacrifices, and (2) that the libation of wine is in some 
sense an imitation of, and a surrogate for, the primitive 
blood-offering. 

Whether libations of water can properly be reckoned 
among the drink-offerings of the Semites is very doubtful. 
David’s libation is plainly exceptional, and in the Levitical 
ritual offerings of water have no place. In the actual 
practice of later Judaism, however, water drawn from the 
fountain of Siloam, and carried into the Temple amidst the 
blare of trumpets, was solemnly poured out upon the altar 
on seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles.! According 
to the Rabbins, the object of this ceremony was to secure 
fertilising rains in the following year. The explanation 
is doubtless correct, for it is a common belief all over the 
world that pouring out water is a potent rain - charm.” 
This being so, we can well understand that the rite derives 
no countenance from the law; in truth it does not belong 
to the sphere of religion at all, but falls under the cate- 
gory of sympathetic magic in which natural phenomena 
are thought to be produced by imitating them on a small 
scale. In some forms of this charm thunder is imitated 
as well as rain;® and perhaps the trumpet-blowing at the 
Temple is to be explained in this way. 

The closest parallel to the water-pouring of the Feast 


1See Sucea, iv. 9; Lightfoot on John vii. 37; Reland, Ant. Heb. p. 
448 sq., with the refs. there given. The water was poured into a special 
channel in the altar. 

* Numerous examples are given by Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 248 sqq., 
to which I may add the annual ‘“‘ water-pouring”’ at Ispahan (Biriini, 
Chron. p. 228 sqq. ; Cazwini, i. 84). 

8 Frazer, i. 303: a very curious Arabian rain-charm, where cattle (or 
perhaps antelopes) are driven into the mountains with firebrands attached 
to their tails, seems to be an imitation of lightning. See Wellhausen, 
p. 167; Lisan, v. 140; Raghib, i. 94. 


2o2 OIL OFFERINGS LECT. VL 


of Tabernacles is found in the rite of Hierapolis, described 
by Lucian! Twice a year a great concourse of worshippers 
assembled at the Temple bearing water from “the sea” 
(i.e. the Euphrates *), which was poured out in the Temple 
and flowed away into a cleft which, according to tradition, 
absorbed the waters of Deucalion’s flood, and so gave occa- 
sion to the erection of a sanctuary, with commemorative 
services on the spot.3 

In Hebrew ritual oil is not a libation, but when used 
in sacrifice serves to moisten and enrich a cereal offering. 
The ancient custom of pouring oil on sacred stones* was 
presumably maintained at Bethel according to the precedent 
set by Jacob; and even in the fourth Christian century the 
Bordeaux pilgrim speaks of the “lapis pertusus” at Jeru- 
salem “ad quem ueniunt Iudei singulis annis et ungunt 
eum”; but, as oj] by itself was not an article of food, the 
natural analogy to this act of ritual is to be sought in the 
application of unguents to the hair and skin. The use of 
unguents was a luxury proper to feasts and gala days, when 
men wore their best clothes and made merry; and from 
Ps. xlv. 8 (E.V. 7) compared with Isa. Ixi. 3, we may con- 


1 Dea Syria, § 13, cf. § 48. The same rite is alluded to by Melito in 
Cureton, Spic. Syr. p. 25. 

2 To the dwellers in Mesopotamia the Euphrates was ‘‘the sea” ; Philo- 
stratus, Vita Apollonii, i. 20. 

3 The ritual of pouring water into the cleft has its parallel in the modern 
practice at the fountain of water before the gates of Tyre, when in September 
the water becomes red and troubled, and the natives gather for a great feast 
and restore its limpidity by pouring a pitcher of sea-water into the source 
(Volney, Etat pol. de la Syrie, chap. viii.; Mariti, ii. 269). Here the 
ceremony takes place at the end of the dry season when the water is low, 
and may therefore be compared with the legend that Mohammed made 
the empty well of Hodaibiya to overflow by causing it to be stirred with 
one of his arrows after a pitcher of water had been poured into it (Moh. 
in Med. p. 247). As a rule the pouring out of water in early superstition 
is, as we have already seen, a rain-charm, and possibly the rite of Hierapolis 
was really designed to procure rain, but only in due measure, 

‘Gen. xxviii. 18, xxxv. 14. 


Io bate 


Gn 4 


LECT. VI. OIL OFFERINGS 233 
clude that the anointing of kings at their coronation is part 
of the ceremony of investing them in the festal dress and 
ornaments appropriate to their dignity on that joyous day 
(cf. Cant. iii. 11). To anoint the head of a guest was a 
hospitable act and a sign of honour; it was the completion 
of the toilet appropriate to a feast. Thus the sacred stone 
or rude idol described by Pausanias (x. 24. 6) had oil poured 
on it daily, and was crowned with wool at every feast. 
We have seen that the Semites on festal occasions dressed 
up their sacred poles, and they did the same with their 
idols... With all this the ritual of anointing goes quite 
naturally ; thus at Medina in the last days of heathenism 
we find a man washing his domestic idol, which had been 
defiled by Moslems, and then anointing it? But apart 
from this, the very act of applying oimtment to the sacred 
symbol had a religious significance. The Hebrew word 
meaning to anoint (mashah) means properly to wipe or 
_ stroke with the hand, which was used to spread the unguent 
over the skin. Thus the anointing of the sacred symbol 
is associated with the simpler form of homage common in 
Arabia, in which the hand was passed over the idol 
(tamassoh). In the oath described by Ibn Hisham, p. 85, 
the parties dip their hands in unguent and then wipe them 
on the Caaba. The ultimate source of the use of unguents 
in religion will be discussed by and by in connection with 
animal sacrifice. 

The sacrificial use of blood, as we shall see hereafter, 
is connected with a series of very important ritual ideas, 
turning on the conception that the blood is a special seat of 
the life. But primarily, when the blood is offered at the 
altar, it is conceived to be drunk by the deity. Apart from 
_ Ps. lL. 13 the direct evidence for this is somewhat scanty, 
so far as the Semites are concerned; the authority usually 

1 Ezek. xvi. 18. 2 Ibn Hisham, p. 303. 


234 OFFERINGS LECT. VI. 


appealed to is Maimonides, who states that the Sabians 
looked on blood as the nourishment of the gods. So late 
a witness would have little value if he stood alone, but 
the expression in the Psalm cannot be mere rhetoric, and 
the same belief appears among early nations in all parts 
of the globe.! Nor does this oblation form an exception 
to the rule that the offerings of the gods consist of human 
food, for many savages drink fresh blood by way of 
nourishment, and esteem it a special delicacy.” 

Among the Arabs, down to the age of Mohammed, blood 
drawn from the veins of a living camel was eaten—in 
a kind of blood pudding—=in seasons of hunger, and 
perhaps also at other times. We shall find, however, as 
we proceed, that sacrificial blood, which contained the life, 
gradually came to be considered as something too sacred 
to be eaten, and that in most sacrifices it was entirely 
made over to the god at the altar. As all slaughter of 
domestic animals for food was originally sacrificial among 
the Arabs as well as among the Hebrews, this carried with 
it the disuse of blood as an article of ordinary food; and 


1 See Tylor, Primitive Culture', ii. 381 sq. The story told by Yacit, 
ii. 882, of the demon at the temple of Riam to whom bowls of sacrificial] 
blood were presented, of which he partook, seems to have a Jewish origin. 
According to one version this demon had the form of a black dog (cf. 
Ibn Hish. p. 18, 1. 3). 

2 See, for America, Bancroft, Native Races, i. 55, 492, ii. 344. In Africa 
fresh blood is held as a dainty by all the negroes of the White Nile (Marno, 
Reise, p. 79); it is largely drunk by Masai warriors (Thomson, p. 430) ; and 
also by the Gallas, as various travellers attest. Among the Hottentots the 
pure blood of beasts is forbidden to women but not to men ; Kolben, State 
of the Cape, i. 205, cf. 203. In the last case we see that the blood is sacred 
food. For blood-drinking among the Tartars, see Yule’s Marco Polo, i. 254, 
and the editor’s note. Where mineral salt is not used for food, the drinking of 
blood supplies, as Thomson remarks, an important constituent to the system. 

3 Maidani, ii. 119; Hamasa, p. 645, last verse. From Agh. xvi. 107. 20, 
one is led to doubt whether the practice was confined to seasons of famine, 
or whether this kind of food was used more regularly, as was done, on the 
other side of the Red Sea, by the Troglodytes (Agatharchides in Fr. Geog. 
Gy. i. 153). See further the Lexg. s.vv. fasada, ‘ilhiz, bajja, musawwad, 


LECT. VI. OF BLOOD 235 
even when slaughter ceased to involve a formal sacrifice, 
it was still thought necessary to slay the victim in 
the name of a god and pour the blood on the ground.! 
Among the Hebrews this practice soon gave rise to an 
absolute prohibition of blood-eating; among the Arabs 
the rule was made absolute only by Mohammed’s 
legislation.” 

The idea that the gods partake only of the liquid parts 
of the sacrifice appears, as has been already said, to indicate 
a modification of the most crassly materialistic conception 
of the divine nature. The direction which this modifica- 
tion took may, I think, be judged of by comparing the 
sacrifices of the gods with the oblations offered to the 
dead. In the famous véxwa of the Odyssey? the ghosts 
drink greedily of the sacrificial blood, and libations of 
gore form a special feature in Greek offerings to heroes. 
Among the Arabs, too, the dead are thirsty rather than 
hungry; water and wine are poured upon their graves.‘ 
Thirst is a subtler appetite than hunger, and therefore 
more appropriate to the disembodied shades, just as it is 
from thirst rather than from hunger that the Hebrews 
and many other nations borrow metaphors for spiritual 
longings and intellectual desires. Thus the idea that the 
gods drink, but do not eat, seems to mark the feeling that 
they must be thought of as having a less solid material 
nature than men. 


1 Wellh.? 113 sqg., 2.117. In an Arab encampment slaves sleep beside 
“the blood and the dung” (Agh. viii. 74. 29); cf. 1 Sam. ii. 8. 

_ 2 Whether the blood of game was prohibited to the Hebrews before the 
law of Lev. xvii. 13 is not quite clear; Deut. xii. 16 is ambiguous. In 
Islam as in Judaism the prohibition of blood-eating and the rule that 
carrion must not be eaten go together (Lev. xvii. 15; Ibn Hish. p. 206, 1. 7). 

3 Bk. xi.; cf. Pindar, Ol. i. 90, where the word aiuaxovpla: is explained 
by Hesychius as ra évayiopara TOy Karoxoudvwy; Pausan. v. 13,$2; Plut., 
Aristides, 21. 

4 Wellhausen, p. 182, 


236 SACRIFICES LECT, VL 


A farther step in the same direction is associated with 
the introduction of fire sacrifices; for, though there are 
valid reasons for thinking that the practice of burning 
the flesh or fat of victims originated in a different line 
of thought (as we shall by and by see), the fire ritual 
readily lent itself to the idea that the burnt flesh is simply 
a food-offering etherealised into fragrant smoke, and that 
the gods regale themselves on the odour instead of the 
substance of the sacrifice. Here again the analogy of gifts 
to the dead helps us to comprehend the point of view; 
among the Greeks of the seventh century B.C. it was, as 
we learn from the story of Periander and Melissa, a new 
idea that the dead could make no use of the gifts buried 
with them, unless they were etherealised by fire’ A 
similar notion seems to have attached itself to the custom 
of sacrifice by fire, combined probably at an early date 
with the idea that the gods, as ethereal beings, lived in the 
upper air, towards which the sacrificial smoke ascended in 
savoury clouds. Thus the prevalence among the settled 
Semites of fire sacrifices, which were interpreted as offer- 
ings of fragrant smoke, marks the firm establishment of a 
conception of the divine nature which, though not purely 
spiritual, is at least stripped of the crassest aspects of 
materialism. _ 

3. The distinction between sacrifices which are wholly 
made over to the god and sacrifices of which the god and 
the worshipper partake together requires careful handling. 
In the later form of Hebrew ritual laid down in the 
Levitical law, the distinction is clearly marked. To the 
former class belong all cereal oblations (Heb. minha; A.V. 
“ offering” or “ meat-offering ”), which so far as they are not 
burned on the altar are assigned to the priests, and among 


1 Herodotus, v. 92; cf. Joannes Lydus, Mens. iii. 27, where the object of 
burning the dead is said to be to etherealise the body along with the soul. 


Te ee fe ee ee 


> et dl et a 


a kT 


— ee 


LECT. VI. BY FIRE 237 


animal sacrifices the sin-offering and the burnt-offering or 
holocaust. Most sin-offerings were not holocausts, but the 
part of the flesh that was not burned fell to the priests. 
To the latter class, again, belong the zebahim or shelamim 
(sing. zébah, shélem, Amos v. 22), that is, all the ordinary 
festal sacrifices, vows and freewill offerings, of which the 
share of the deity was.the blood and the fat of the 
intestines, the rest of the carcase (subject to the payment 
of certain dues to the officiating priest) being left to the 
worshipper to form a social feast.!. In judging of the 
original scope and meaning of these two classes of sacrifice, 
it will be convenient, in the first instance, to confine our 
attention to the simplest and most common forms of 
offering. In the last days of the kingdom of Judah, and 
still more after the Exile, piacular sacrifices and holocausts 
acquired a prominence which they did not possess in 
ancient times. The old history knows nothing of the 
Levitical sin-offering; the atoning function of sacrifice is 
not confined to a particular class of oblation, but belongs to 


1%n the English Bible zebahim is rendered ‘‘ sacrifices,” and shelamim 
“‘neace-offerings.”” The latter rendering is not plausible, and the term 
shelamim can hardly be separated from the verb shill/em, to pay or discharge, 
¢.g. a vow. Zébah is the more general word, including (like the Arabic 
dhibh) all animals slain for food, agreeably with the fact that in old times all 
slaughter was sacrificial. In later times, when slaughter and sacrifice were 
no longer identical, zébah was not precise enough to be used as a technical 
term of ritual, and so the term shelamim came to be more largely used than 
in the earlier literature. 

On the sacrificial lists of the Carthaginians the terms corresponding to 
aby and M3} seem to be b> and nyyy. The former is the old Hebrew byb5 
(Deut. xxxiii. 10; 1 Sam. vii. 9), the latter is etymologically quite obscure. 
In the Carthaginian burnt - sacrifice a certain weight of the flesh was 
apparently not consumed on the altar, but given to the priests (CIS. 165), 
as in the case of the Hebrew sin-offering, which was probably a modification 
of the holocaust. The 65 nbv,, which appears along with b> and Nyy 
in CZS. 165 (but not in CJS. 167), is hardly a third co-ordinate species of 
sacrifice. The editors of the Corpus regard it as a variety of the holocaust 
(hol. ewcharisticum), which is not easily reconciled with their own restitution 
of ]. 11 or with the Hebrew sense of pw. Perhaps it is an ordinary sacrifice 
accompanying a holocaust. 


238 SACRIFICIAL MEALS LECT. V1. 


all sacrifices! The holocaust, again, although ancient, is 
not in ancient times a common form of sacrifice, and unless 
on very exceptional occasions occurs only in great public 
feasts and in association with zebahim. The distressful 
times that preceded the end of Hebrew independence drove 
men to seek exceptional religious means to conciliate the 
favour of a deity who seemed to have turned his back on 
his people. Piacular rites and costly holocausts became, 
therefore, more usual, and after the abolition of the local 
high places this new importance was still further accentu- 
ated by contrast with the decline of the more common 
forms of sacrifice. When each local community had its 
own high place, it was the rule that every animal slain for 
food should be presented at the altar, and every meal at 
which flesh was served had the character of a sacrificial 
feast.2, As men ordinarily lived on bread fruit and milk, 
and ate flesh only on feast days and holidays, this rule was 
easily observed as long as the local sanctuaries stood. 
But when there was no altar left except at Jerusalem, the 
identity of slaughter and sacrifice could no longer be main- 
tained, and accordingly the law of Deuteronomy allows 
men to slay and eat domestic animals everywhere, provided 
only that the blood—the ancient share of the god—is 
poured out upon the ground* When this new rule came 
into force men ceased to feel that the eating of flesh was 
essentially a sacred act, and though strictly religious meals 
were still maintained at Jerusalem on the great feast days, 
the sacrificial meal necessarily lost much of its old signifi- 


1To z¢ébah and minha, 1 Sam. iii. 14, xxvi. 19, and still more to the 
holocaust, Mic. vi. 6, 7. 

2 Hos, ix. 4. 

3 Deut. xii. 15, 16; cf. Lev. xvii. 10 sg. The fat of the intestines was 
also from ancient times reserved for the deity (1 Sam. ii. 16), and therefore 
it also was forbidden food (Lev. iii. 17). The prohibition did not extend to 
the fat distributed through other parts of the body. 


LECT, VI. AND HOLOCAUSTS 239 


cance, and the holocaust seemed to have a more purely 
sacred character than the zébah, in which men ate and 
drank just as they might do at home. 

But in ancient times the preponderance was all the 
other way, and the zébah was not only much more frequent 
than the holocaust, but much more intimately bound up 
with the prevailing religious ideas and feelings of the 
Hebrews. On this point the evidence of the older litera- 
ture is decisive ; 2ébah and minha, sacrifices slain to provide 
a religious feast, and vegetable oblations presented at the 
altar, make up the sum of the ordinary religious practices 
of the older Hebrews, and we must try to understand these 
ordinary rites before we attack the harder problem of 
exceptional forms of sacrifice. 

Now, if we put aside the piacula and whole burnt- 
offerings, it appears that, according to the Levitical ritual, 
the distinction between oblations in which the worshipper 
shared, and oblations which were wholly given over to the 
deity to be consumed on the altar or by the priests, corre- 
sponds to the distinction between animal and vegetable 
offerings. The animal victim was presented at the altar 
and devoted by the imposition of hands, but the greater 
part of the flesh was returned to the worshipper, to be 
eaten by him under special rules. It could be eaten only 
by persons ceremonially clean, ze. fit to approach the 
deity ; and if the food was not consumed on the same day, 
or in certain cases within two days, the remainder had to 
be burned The plain meaning of these rules is that the 
flesh is not common but holy,” and that the act of eating 
it is a part of the service, which is to be completed before 


men break up from the sanctuary.’ The zébah, therefore, is 
1 Ley. vii. 15 sqg., xix. 6, xxii. 30. 
2 Hag. ii. 12; cf. Jer. xi. 15, LXX. 


8 The old sacrificial feasts occupy but a single day (1 Sam. ix.), or at most 
two days (1 Sam. xx. 27). 


240 CEREAL LECT. VI. 


not a mere attenuated offering, in which man grudges to 
give up the whole victim to his God. On the contrary, the 
central significance of the rite lies in the act of communion 
between God and man, when the worshipper is admitted to 
eat of the same holy flesh of which a part is laid upon the 
altar as “the food of the deity.” But with the minha 
nothing of this kind occurs; the whole consecrated offering 
is retained by the deity, and the worshipper’s part in the 
service is completed as soon as he has made over his gift. 
In short, while the zébah turns on an act of communion 
between the deity and his worshippers, the minha (as its 
name denotes) is simply a tribute. 

I will not undertake to say that the distinction so 
clearly laid down in the Levitical law was observed before 
the Exile in all cases of cereal sacrifices. Probably it was 
not, for in most ancient religions we find that cereal 
offerings come to be accepted in certain cases as sub- 
stitutes for animal sacrifices, and that in this way the 
difference between the two kinds of offering gradually gets 
to be obliterated.1_ But in such matters great weight is to 
be attached to priestly tradition, such as underlies the 
Levitical ritual. The priests were not likely to invent a 
distinction of the kind which has been described, and in 
point of fact there is good evidence that they did not 
invent it. For there is no doubt that in ancient times 
the ordinary source of the minha was the offering of first- 
fruits—this is, of a small but choice portion of the annual 
produce of the ground, which in fact is the only cereal 
oblation prescribed in the oldest laws.? So far as can be 
seen, the first-fruits were always a tribute wholly made 

1 So at Rome models in wax or dough often took the place of animals. 
The same thing took place at Athens: Hesychius, s.vv. Bods and tBdopos 
fous ; cf. Thucyd. i. 126 and schol. At Carthage we have found the name 


zébah applied to vegetable offerings (p. 222 n.). 
2 Ex. xxii. 29, xxiii. 19, xxxiv. 26, 


LECT, VI. OFFERINGS 241 


over to the deity at the sanctuary. They were brought by 
the peasant in a basket and deposited at the altar,) and so 
far as they were not actually burned on the altar, they 
were assigned to the priests ?—not to the ministrant as a 
reward for his service, but to the priests as a body, as the 
household of the sanctuary.? 

Among the Hebrews, as among many other agricultural 
peoples, the offering of first-fruits was connected with the 
idea that it is not lawful or safe to eat of the new fruit 
until the god has received his due* The offering makes 
the whole crop lawful food, but it does not make it holy 
food; nothing is consecrated except the small portion 
offered at the altar, and of the remaining store clean 
persons and unclean eat alike throughout the year. This, 
therefore, is quite a different thing from the consecration 
of animal sacrifices, for in the latter case the whole flesh 
is holy, and only those who are clean can eat of it.® 

In old Israel all slaughter was sacrifice® and a man 
could never eat beef or mutton except as a religious act, 
but cereal food had no such sacred associations; as soon 
as God had received His due of first-fruits, the whole 
domestic store was common. The difference between 
cereal and animal food was therefore deeply marked, and 
though bread was of course brought to the sanctuary to be 


1 Deut. xxvi. 1 sgq. 

2 Lev. xxiii. 17 ; Deut. xviii. 4. For the purpose of this argument it is 
not necessary to advert to the distinction recognised by post - Biblical 
tradition between réshith and bikkiirim, on which see Wellh., Prolegomena, 
3rd ed., p. 161 sq. (Eng. trans., p. 157 sq.). 

3 This follows from 2 Kings xxiii. 9. The tribute was sometimes paid 
to a man of God (2 Kings iv. 42), which is another way of making it over 
to the deity. In the Levitical law also the minha belongs to the priests 
as a whole (Lev. vii. 10). This is an important point. What the minis- 
trant receives as a fee comes from the worshipper, what the priests as a 
whole receive is given them by the deity. 

4 Lev. xxiii. 14; cf. Pliny, H. N. xviii. 8. 

® Hos. ix. 4 refers only to animal food. 

$ The same thing is true of Old Arabia ; Wellh. p. 117. 

16 


242 SACRIFICIAL LECT. VL 


— IS ea 


eaten with the zebahim, it had not and could not have the 
same religious meaning as the holy flesh. It appears from 
Amos iv. 4 that it was the custom in northern Israel to 
lay a portion of the worshipper’s provision of ordinary 
leavened bread on the altar with the sacrificial flesh, and 
this custom was natural enough ; for why should not the 
deity’s share of the sacrificial meal have the same cereal 
accompaniments as man’s share? But there is no indica- 
tion that this oblation consecrated the part of the bread 
retained by the worshipper and made it holy bread. The 
only holy bread of which we read is such as belonged to 
the priests, not to the offerer.. In Lev. vu. 14, Num. vi. 
15, the cake of common bread is given to the priest 
instead of being laid on the altar, but it is carefully 
distinguished from the minha. In old times the priests 
had no altar dues of this kind. They had only the first- 
fruits and a claim to a piece of the sacrificial flesh,? from 
which it may be presumed that the custom of offering 
bread with the zébah was not primitive. Indeed Amos 
seems to mention it with some surprise as a thing not 
familiar to Judean practice. At all events no sacrificial 
meal could consist of bread alone. All through the old 
history it is taken for granted that a religious feast 
necessarily implies a victim slain.® 


1] Sam. xxi. 4. 2 Deut. xviii. 8, 4; 1 Sam. ii. 13 sqq. 

3 What has been said above of the contrast between cereal sacrificial gifts 
and the sacrificial feast seems to me to hold good also for Greece and Rome, 
with some modification in the case of domestic meals, which among the 
Semites had no religious character, but at Rome were consecrated by a 
portion being offered to the household gods. This, however, has nothing to do 
with public religion, in which the law holds good that there is no sacred feast 
without a victim, and that consecrated aparche are wholly given over to 
the sanctuary. The same thing holds good for many other peoples, and 
seems, so far as my reading goes, to be the general rule. But there are 
exceptions. My friend Mr. J. G. Frazer, to whose wide reading I never 
appeal without profit, refers me to Wilken’s Alfoeren van het eiland Beroe, 
p- 26, where a true sacrificial feast is made of the first-fruits of rice. Thia 


LECT. VI. FEAST 243 


The distinction which we are thus led to draw between 
the cereal oblation, in which the dominant idea is that of 
a tribute paid to the god, and animal sacrifices, which are 
essentially acts of communion between the god and his 
worshippers, deserves to be followed out in more detail. 
But this task must be reserved for another lecture. 


is called ‘‘eating the soul of the rice,” so that the rice is viewed as a living 
creature. In such a case it is not unreasonable to say that the rice may 
be regarded as really an animate victim. Agricultural religions seem often 
to I:ave borrowed ideas from the older cults of pastoral times, 


LECTURE VII 
FIRST-FRUITS, TITHES, AND SACRIFICIAL MEALS 


It became apparent to us towards the close of the last 
lecture that the Levitical distinction between minha and 
zébah, or cereal oblation and animal sacrifice, rests upon 
an ancient principle; that the idea of communion with 
the deity in a sacrificial meal of holy food was primarily 
confined to the zébah or animal victim, and that the proper 
significance of the cereal offering is that of a tribute paid 
by the worshipper from the produce of the soil. Now we 
have already seen that the conception of the national 
deity as the Baal, or lord of the land, was developed in 
connection with the growth of agriculture and agricultural 
law. Spots of natural fertility were the Baal’s land, 
because they were productive without the labour of man’s 
hands, which, according to Eastern ideas, is the only basis 
of private property in the soil; and land which required 
irrigation was also liable to the payment of a sacred 
tribute, because it was fertilised by streams which belonged 
to the god or even were conceived as instinct with divine 
energy. This whole circle of ideas belongs to a condition 
of society in which agriculture and the laws that regulate 
it have made considerable progress, and is foreign to the 
sphere of thought in which the purely nomadic Semites 
moved. That the minha is not so ancient a form of 
sacrifice as the z¢bah will not be doubted, fo nomadic life 
is older than agriculture. But if the foregoin: argument 
244 


LECT. vi. TITHES 245 


is correct, we can say more than this ; we can affirm that 
the idea of the sacrificial meal as an act of communion is 
older than sacrifice in the sense of tribute, and that the 
latter notion grew up with the development of agricultural 
life and the conception of the deity as Baal of the land. 
Among the nomadic Arabs the idea of sacrificial tribute 
has little or no place; all sacrifices are free-will offerings, 
and except in some rare forms of piacular oblation— 
particularly human sacrifice—and perhaps in some very 
simple offerings such as the libation of milk, the object 
of the sacrifice is to provide the material for an act of 
sacrificial communion with the god.’ 

In most ancient nations the idea of sacrificial tribute is 
most clearly marked in the institution of the sacred tithe, 
which was paid to the gods from the produce of the soil, 
and sometimes also from other sources of revenue.? In 
antiquity tithe and tribute are practically identical, nor is 
the name of tithe strictly limited to tributes of one-tenth, 
the term being used to cover any impost paid in kind 
upon a fixed scale. Such taxes play a great part in the 
revenues of Eastern sovereigns, and have done so from a 
very early date. The Babylonian kings drew a tithe from 
imports,? and the tithe of the fruits of the soil had the 
first place among the revenues of the Persian satraps.‘ 
The Hebrew kings in like manner took tithes of their 
subjects, and the tribute in kind which Solomon drew 
from the provinces for the support of his household may 


1 Some points connected with this statement which invite attention, but 
cannot be fully discussed at the present stage of the argument, will be 
considered in Additional Note E, Sacred Tribute in Arabia. 

2 See the instances collected by Spencer, Lib. iii. cap. 10,§ 1; Hermann, 
Gottesdienstliche Alterth. d. Griechen, 2nd ed., § 20, note 4; Wyttenbach in 
the index to his edition of Plutarch’s Moralia, s.v. “Hpaxris. 

5 Aristotle, Gicon. p. 13526 of the Berlin edition. A tithe on imports 
is found also at Mecca (Azraci, p. 107; Ibn Hish. p. 72). 

* Aristotle, con. p. 13455. 


246 THE TITHE IN LECT. VII, 


be regarded as an impost of this sort.1_ Thus the institution 
of a sacred tithe corresponds to the conception of the 
national god as a king, and so at Tyre tithes were paid to 
Melearth, “the king of the city.” The Carthaginians, as 
Diodorus? tells us, sent the tithe of produce to Tyre 
annually from the time of the foundation of their city. 
This is the earliest example of a Semitic sacred tithe of 
which we have any exact account, and it is to be noted 
that it is as much a political as a religious tribute; for the 
temple of Melcarth was the state treasury of Tyre, and it 
is impossible to draw a distinction between the sacred 
tithe paid by the Carthaginians and the political tribute 
paid by other colonies, such as Utica.? 

The oldest Hebrew laws require the payment of first- 
fruits, but know nothing of a tithe due at the sanctuary. 
And indeed the Hebrew sanctuaries in old time had not 
such a splendid establishment as called for the imposition 
of sacred tributes on a large scale. When Solomon erected 
his temple, in emulation of Hiram’s great buildings at 
Tyre, a more lavish ritual expenditure became necessary ; 
but, as the temple at Jerusalem was attached to the palace, 
this was part of the household expenditure of the sovereign, 
and doubtless was met out of the imposts in natura levied 
tor the maintenance of the court. In other words, the 
maintenance of the royal sanctuary was a charge on the 
king’s tithes; and so we find that a tenth directly paid 
to the sanctuary forms no part of the temple revenues 

11 Sam. viii. 15, 17; 1 Kings iv. 7 sgg. The ‘‘king’s mowings” (Amos 
vii. 1) belong to the same class of imposts, being a tribute in kind levied 
on the spring herbage to feed the horses of the king (cf. 1 Kings xviii. 5). 
Similarly the Romans in Syria levied a tax on pasture-land in the month 
Nisan for the food of their horses: see Bruns and Sachau, Syrisch-Rém 
Rechtsbuch, Text L, § 121; and Wright, WMotule Syriace (1887), p. 6. 

2 Lib. xx. cap. 14. 


3 Jos., Antt. viii. 5. 38, as read by Niese after Gutschmid. 
‘Ci. 2 Kings xvi. 15; Ezek. xlv. 9 sgg. 


LECT, VII. OLD ISRAEL 247 


referred to in 2 Kings xii. 4. In northern Israel the 
royal sanctuaries, of which Bethel was the chief,! were 
originally maintained, in the same way, by the king 
himself; but as Bethel was not the ordinary seat of the 
court, so that the usual stated sacrifices there could not 
be combined with the maintenance of the king’s table, 
some special provision must have been made for them. 
As the new and elaborate type of sanctuary was due to 
Pheenician influence, it was Phoenicia, where the religious 
tithe was an ancient institution, which would naturally 
suggest the source from which a more splendid worship 
should be defrayed; the service of the god of the land 
ought to be a burden on the land. And the general 
analogy of fiscal arrangements in the East makes it 
probable that this would be done by assigning to the 
sanctuary the taxes in kind levied on the surrounding 
district ;? it is therefore noteworthy that the only pre- 
Deuteronomic references to a tithe paid at the sanctuary 
refer to the “ royal chapel” of Bethel.? 

The tithes paid to ancient sanctuaries were spent in 
various ways, and were by no means, what the Hebrew 
tithes ultimately became under the hierocracy, a revenue 
appropriated to the maintenance of the priests; thus in 
South Arabia we find tithes devoted to the erection of 
sacred monuments.* One of the chief objects, however, 
for which they were expended was the maintenance of 
feasts and sacrifices of a public character, at which the 
worshippers were entertained free of charge.® This element 


1 Amos vii. 18. 

* Cf. the grant of the village of Betocece for the maintenance of the 
sanctuary of the place, Waddington, No. 2720a. 

3 Gen. xxviii. 22; Amos iv. 4. 

4 Mordtm. und Miller, Sab. Denkm. No. 11 (CIS. iv. 19, 1. 7). 

5 Xen., Anab. v. 3.9; Waddington, wt swpra. Similarly the tithes of 
incense paid to the priests at Sabota in South Arabia were spent on the feast 
which the god spread for his guests for a certain number of days (Pliny, 


248 THE TITHE IN LECT, VII. 


cannot have been lacking at the royal sanctuaries of the 
Hebrews, for a splendid hospitality to all and sundry who 
assembled at the great religious feasts was recognised as 
the duty of the king even in the time of David! And 
so we find that Amos enumerates the tithe at Bethel as 
one of the chief elements that contributed to the jovial 
luxurious worship maintained at that holy place. 

If this account of the matter is correct, the tithes 
collected at Bethel were strictly of the nature of a tribute 
gathered from certain lands, and payment of them was 
doubtless enforced by royal authority. They were not 
used by each man to make a private religious feast for 
himself and his family, but were devoted to the mainten- 
ance of the public or royal sacrifices. This, it ought to 
be said, is not the view commonly taken by modern critics. 
The old festivities at Hebrew sanctuaries before the regal 
period were maintained, not out of any public revenue, but 
by each man bringing up to the sanctuary his own victim 
and all else that was necessary to make up a hearty feast, 
with the sacrificial flesh as its piéce de resistance. It is 
generally assumed that this description was still applicable 
to the feasts at Bethel in Amos’s time, and that the tithes 
were the provision that each farmer brought with him to 
feast his domestic circle and friends. At first sight this 
view looks plausible enough, especially when we find that 
the Book of Deuteronomy, written a century after Amos 
prophesied, actually prescribes that the annual tithes should 
be used by each householder to furnish forth a family 
feast before Jehovah. But it is not safe to argue back 
from the reforming ordinances of Deuteronomy to the 
practices of the northern sanctuaries, without checking the 


H. N. xii. 63). M. R. Duval (Rev. d’ Assyriologie, etc., 1888, p. 1 sq.) 
argues that at Taimi, in N. Arabia, there was a tithe on palm trees from 
which grants were made tothe priest. But this is very doubtful. 

12 Sam. vi. 19, 21 Sam,:i..2h 24) x, 3, 


LECT, VII. OLD ISRAEL 249 


inference at every point. The connection between tithe 
and tribute is too close and too ancient to allow us to 
admit without hesitation that the Deuteronomic annual 
tithe, which retains nothing of the character of a tribute, 
is the primitive type of the institution. And this difficulty 
is not diminished when we observe that the Book of 
Deuteronomy recognises also another tithe, payable once 
in three years, which really is of the nature of a sacred 
tribute, although it is devoted not to the altar but to 
charity. It is arbitrary to say that the first tithe of 
Deuteronomy corresponds to ancient usage, and that the 
second is an innovation of the author; indeed, some indi- 
cations of the Book of Deuteronomy itself point all the 
other way. In Deut. xxvi. 12, the third year, in which 
the charity tithe is to be paid, is called par excellence 
“the year of tithing,” and in the following verse the 
charity tithe is reckoned in the list of “holy things,” 
while the annual tithe, to be spent on family festivities 
at the sanctuary, is not so reckoned. In the face of these 
difficulties it is not safe to assume that either of the 
Deuteronomic tithes exactly corresponds to old usage. * 
And if we look at Amos’s account of the worship at 
Bethel as a whole, a feature which cannot fail to strike us 
is that the luxurious feasts beside the altars which he 
describes are entirely different in kind from the old rustic 
festivities at Shiloh described in 1 Samuel. They are not 
simple agricultural merry-makings of a popular character, 
but mainly feasts of the rich, enjoying themselves at the 
expense of the poor. The keynote struck in chap. ii. 7, 8, 
where the sanctuary itself is designated as the seat of 
oppression and extortion, is re-echoed all through the book ; 
Amos’s charge against the nobles is not merely that they 
are professedly religious and yet oppressors, but that their 
luxurious religion is founded on oppression, on the gains of 


250 THE TITHE IN LECT. VII. 


corruption at the sacred tribunal and other forms of ex- 
tortion. This is nos the association in which we can look 
for the idyllic simplicity of the Deuteronomic family feast 
of tithes. But it is the very association in which one 
expects to find the tithe as I have supposed it to be; the 
revenues of the state religion, originally designed to main- 
tain a public hospitality at the altar, and enable rich and 
poor alike to rejoice before their God, were monopolised by 
a privileged class. 

This being understood, the innovations in the law of 
tithes proposed in the Book of Deuteronomy become 
sufficiently intelligible. In the kingdom of Judah there 
was no royal sanctuary except that at Jerusalem, the 
maintenance of which was part of the king’s household 
charges, and it is hardly probable that any part of the 
royal tithes was assigned to the maintenance of the local 
sanctuaries. But as early as the time of Samuel we find 
religious feasts of clans or of towns, which are not a mere 
agglomeration of private sacrifices, and so must have been 
defrayed out of communal funds; from this germ, as 
religion became more luxurious, a fixed impost on land 
for the maintenance of the public services, such as was 
collected among the Phcenicians, would naturally grow. 
Such an impost would be in the hands, not of the priests, 
but of the heads of clans and communes, we. of the rich, 
and would necessarily be liable to the same abuses as 
prevailed in the northern kingdom. The remedy which 
Deuteronomy proposes for these abuses is to leave each 
farmer to spend his own tithes as he pleases at the central 
sanctuary. But this provision, if it had stood alone, would 
have amounted to the total abolition of a communal fund, 
which, however much abused in practice, was theoretically 
designed for the maintenance of a public table, where 
every one had a right to claim a portion, and which was 


LECT, VII. OLD ISRAEL 251 
doubtless of some service to the landless _proletariate, 
however hardly its collection might press on the poorer 
farmer.1 This difficulty was met by the triennial tithe 
devoted to charity, to the landless poor and to the landless 
Levite. Strictly speaking, this triennial due was the only 
real tithe left—the only impost for a religious purpose 
which a man was actually bound to pay away—and to 
it the whole subsequent history of Hebrew tithes attaches 
itself. The other tithe, which was not a due but of a 
mere voluntary character, disappears altogether in the 
Levitical legislation. 

If this account of the Hebrew tithe is correct, that 
institution is of relatively modern origin—as indeed is 
indicated by the silence of the most ancient laws—and 
throws very little light on the original principles of 
Semitic sacrifice. The principle that the god of the land 
claims a tribute on the increase of the soil was originally 
expressed in the offering of first-fruits, at a time when 
sanctuaries and their service were too simple to need any 
elaborate provision for their support. The tithe originated 
when worship became more complex and ritual more 
splendid, so that a fixed tribute was necessary for its 
maintenance. ‘The tribute took the shape of an impost on 
the produce of land, partly because this was an ordinary 
source of revenue for all public purposes, partly because 
such an impost could be justified from the religious point 
of view, as agreeing in principle with the oblation of first- 
fruits, and constituting a tribute to the god from the 
agricultural blessings he bestowed. But here the similarity 
between tithes and first-fruits ends. The first-fruits consti- 
tuted a private sacrifice of the worshipper, who brought 


1 The same principle was acknowledged in Greece, ad ray iepwv yap of 
wruxoi Cwow (Schol. on Aristoph. Plutus, 596, in Hermann op. cit. § 15, note 
16). So too in the Arabian meal-offering to Ocaisir (supra, p. 2238). 


252 TITHES AND LECT. VII, 


them himself to the altar and was answerable for the pay- 
ment only to God and his own conscience. The tithe, on 
the contrary, was a public burden enforced by the com- 
munity for the maintenance of public religion. In principle 
there was no reason why it should not be employed for any 
purpose, connected with the public exercises of religion, 
for which money or money’s worth was required; the way 
in which it should be spent depended not on the individual 
tithe-payer but on the sovereign or the commune. In 
later times, after the exile, it was entirely appropriated to 
the support of the clergy. But in old Israel it seems to 
have been mainly, if not exclusively, used to furnish forth 
public feasts at the sanctuary. In this respect it entirely 
differed from the first-fruits, which might be, and generally 
were, offered at a public festival, but did not supply any 
part of the material of the feast. The sacred feast, at 
which men and their god ate together, was originally quite 
unconnected with the cereal oblations paid in tribute to 
the deity, and its staple was the zébah—the sacrificial 
victim. We shall see by and by that in its origin the 
zébah was not the private offering of an individual house- 
holder but the sacrifice of a clan, and so the sacrificial 
meal had pre-eminently the character of a public feast. 
Now when public feasts are organised on a considerable 
scale, and furnished not merely with store of sacrificial 
flesh, but—as was the wont in Israel under the kings— 
with all manner of luxurious accessories, they come to be 
costly affairs, which can only be defrayed out of public 
moneys. The Israel of the time of the kings was not a 
simple society of peasants, all living in the same way, who 
could simply club together to maintain a rustic feast by 
what each man brought to the sanctuary from his own 
farm. Splendid festivals like those of Bethel were evi- 
dently not furnished in this way, but were mainly banquets 


LECT. VII. PUBLIC FEASTS 253 


of the upper classes in which the poor had a very subordi- 
nate share. The source of these festivals was the tithe, 
but it was not the poor tithe-payer who figured as host at 
the banquet. The organisation of the feast was in the 
hands of the ruling classes, who received the tithes and 
spent them on the service in a way that gave the lion’s 
share of the good things to themselves; though no doubt, 
as in other ancient countries, the principle of a public feast 
was not wholly ignored, and every one present had some- 
thing to eat and drink, so that the whole populace was kept 
in good humour.’ Of course it is not to be supposed that 
the whole service was of this public character. Private 
persons still brought up their own vows and _ free-will 
offerings, and arranged their own family parties. But 
these, I conceive, were quite independent of the tithes, 
which were a public tax devoted to what was regarded 
as the public part of religion. On the whole, therefore, the 
tithe system has nothing to do with primitive Hebrew 
religion; the only point about it which casts a light back- 
wards on the earlier stages of worship is that it could 
hardly have sprung up except in connection with the idea 
that the maintenance of sacrifice was a public duty, and 
that the sacrificial feast had essentially a public character. 
This point, however, is of the highest importance, and must 
be kept clearly before us as we proceed. 

Long before any public revenue was set apart for the 
maintenance of sacrificial ritual, the ordinary type of 
Hebrew worship was essentially social, for in antiquity all 
religion was the affair of the community rather than of the 


1 The only way of escape from this conclusion is to suppose that the rich 
nobles paid out of their own pockets for the more expensive parts of the 
public sacrifices ; and no one who knows the East and reads the Book of 
Amos will believe that. Nathan’s parable about the poor man’s one lamb, 
which his rich neighbour took to make a feast (necessarily at that date 
sacrificial), is an apposite illustration, 


254 SACRIFICIAL LECT. VII 


individual. <A sacrifice was a public ceremony of a town- 
ship or of a clan,’ and private householders were accustomed 
to reserve their offerings for the annual feasts, satisfying 
their religious feelings in the interval by vows to be dis- 
charged when the festal season came round.” Then the 
crowds streamed into the sanctuary from all sides, dressed 
in their gayest attire, marching joyfully to the sound of 
music,¢ and bearing with them not only the victims 
appointed for sacrifice, but store of bread and wine to set 
forth the feast.5 The law of the feast was open-handed 
hospitality ; no sacrifice was complete without guests, and 
portions were freely distributed to rich and poor within 
the circle of a man’s acquaintance.® Universal hilarity 
prevailed, men ate drank and were merry together, rejoic- 
ing before their God. 

The picture which I have drawn of the dominant 
type of Hebrew worship contains nothing peculiar to the 
religion of Jehovah. It is clear from the Old Testament 
that the ritual observances at a Hebrew and at a Canaanite 
sanctuary were so similar that to the mass of the people 
Jehovah worship and Baal worship were not separated by 
any well-marked line, and that in both cases the prevailing 


1] Sam. ix. 12, xx. 6. In the latter passage ‘‘ family’ means ‘‘ clan,” 
not ‘‘domestic circle.” See below, p. 276, note. 

21 Sam. i. 3, 21. 3 Hos, ii. 15 (E.V. 13). 

“Isa,)xxxi 29. 51 Sam. x. 3. 

61 Sam. ix. 13; 2 Sam. vi. 19, xv. 11; Neh. viii. 10. The guests of 
the sacrifice supply a figure to the prophets (Ezek. xxxix. 17 sqq.; Zeph. 
i. 7). Nabal’s refusal to allow David to share in his sheep-shearing feast 
was not only churlish but a breach of religious custom; from Amos iv. 5 it 
would appear that with a free-will offering there was a free invitation to all 
to come and partake. For the Arabian usuage in like cases, see Wellhausen, 
p. 117 sq. A banqueting hall for the communal sacrifice is mentioned as 
early as 1 Sam. ix. 22, and the name given to it (/ishka) seems to be identical 
with the Greek ateyn, from which it may be gathered that the Phenicians 
had similar halls from an early date; cf. Judg. ix. 27, xvi. 23 sqg. For 
the communal feasts of the Syrians in later times, see Posidon. Apam, ap. 
Athen. xii. 527 (Fr. Hist, Gr. iii. 258). 


LECT. VII. FESTIVALS 255 


tone and temper of the worshippers were determined by 
the festive character of the service. Nor is the preval- 
ence of the sacrificial feast, as the established type of 
ordinary religion, confined to the Semitic peoples; the 
same kind of worship ruled in ancient Greece and Italy, 
and seems to be the universal type of the local cults of 
the small agricultural communities out of which all the 
nations of ancient civilisation grew. Everywhere we find 
that a sacrifice ordinarily involves a feast, and that a feast 
cannot be provided without a sacrifice. For a feast is not 
complete without flesh, and in early times the rule that 
all slaughter is sacrifice was not confined to the Semites.! 
The identity of religious occasions and festal seasons may 
indeed be taken as the determining characteristic of the 
type of ancient religion generally; when men meet their 
god they feast and are glad together, and whenever they 
feast and are glad they desire that the god should be of 
the party. This view is proper to religions in which the 
habitual temper of the worshippers is one of joyous con- 
fidence in their god, untroubled by any habitual sense of 
human guilt, and resting on the firm conviction that they 
and the deity they adore are good friends, who understand 
each other perfectly and are united by bonds not easily 
broken. The basis of this confidence lies of course in the 
view that the gods are part and parcel of the same natural 
community with their worshippers. The divine father or 
king claims the same kind of respect and service as a 
human father or king, and practical religion is simply a 
branch of social duty, an understood part of the conduct 


1It is Indian (Manu, v. 31 sqqg.) and Persian (Sprenger, Kranische 
Alterth. iii. 578; cf. Herod. i. 182; Strabo, xv. 3. 18, p. 732), Among 
the Romans and the older Greeks there was something sacrificial about every 
feast, or even about every social meal; in the latter case the Romans paid 
tribute to the household gods. On the identity of feast and sacrifice in 
Greece, see Atheneus, v. 19; Buchholz, Hom. Realien, II. ii, 202, 213 sqq. 


256 MEANING OF LECT. VIl | 


of daily life, governed by fixed rules to which every one 
has been trained from his infancy. No man who is a good 
citizen, living up to the ordinary standard of civil morality 
in his dealings with his neighbours, and accurately following 
the ritual tradition in his worship of the gods, is oppressed 
with the fear that the deity may set a higher standard 
of conduct and find him wanting. Civil and religious 
morality have one and the same measure, and the conduct 
_ which suffices to secure the esteem of men suffices also to 
make a man perfectly easy as to his standing with the 
gods. It must be remembered that all antique morality 
is an affair of social custom and customary law, and that 
in the more primitive forms of ancient life the force of 
custom is so strong that there is hardly any middle course 
between living well up to the standard of social duty 
which it prescribes, and falling altogether outside the 
pale of the civil and religious community. A man who 
deliberately sets himself against the rules of the society 
in which he lives must expect to be outlawed; but minor 
offences are readily condoned as mere mistakes, which may 
expose the offender to a fine but do not permanently lower 
his social status or his self-respect. So too a man may 
offend his god, and be called upon to make reparation to 
him. But in such a case he knows, or can learn from a 
competent priestly authority, exactly what he ought to do 
to set matters right, and then everything goes on as before. 
In a religion of this kind there is no room for an abiding 
sense of sin and unworthiness, or for acts of worship that 
express the struggle after an unattained righteousness, the 
longing for uncertain forgiveness. It is only when the old 
religions begin to break down that these feelings come in. 
The older national and tribal religions work with the 
smoothness of a machine. Men are satisfied with their 
gods, and they feel that the gods are satisfied with them, 


LECT. VII. SACRIFICIAL FEASTS 257 
Or if at any time famine, pestilence’ or disaster in war 
appears to shew that the gods are angry, this casts no 
doubt on the adequacy of the religious system as such, 
but is merely held to prove that a grave fault has been 
committed by some one for whom the community is 
responsible, and that they are bound to put it right by an 
appropriate reparation. That they can put it right, and 
stand as well with the god as they ever did, is not doubted ; 
and when rain falls, or the pestilence is checked, or the 
defeat is retrieved, they at once recover their old easy 
confidence, and go on eating and drinking and rejoicing 
before their god with the assurance that he and they are 
on the best of jovial good terms. 

_ The kind of religion which finds its proper esthetic 
expression in the merry sacrificial feast implies a habit of 
mind, a way of taking the world as well as a way of 
regarding the gods, which we have some difficulty in 
realising. Human life is never perfectly happy and 
satisfactory, yet ancient religion assumes that through 
the help of the gods it is so happy and satisfactory that 
ordinary acts of worship are all brightness and hilarity, 
expressing no other idea than that the worshippers are 
well content with themselves and with their divine 
sovereign. This implies a measure of tmsouciance, a power 
of casting off the past and living in the impression of the 
moment, which belongs to the childhood of humanity, and 
can exist only along with a childish unconsciousness of the 
inexorable laws that connect the present and the future 
with the past. Accordingly the more developed nations 
of antiquity, in proportion as they emerged from national 
childhood, began to find the old religious forms inadequate, 
and either became less concerned to associate all their 
happiness with the worship of the gods, and, in a word, 
less religious, or else were unable to think of the divine 

17 


258 THE GODS AND LECT. VII. 


powers as habitually well pleased and favourable, and so 
were driven to look on the anger of the gods as much 
more frequent and permanent than their fathers had 
supposed, and to give to atoning rites a stated and 
important place in ritual, which went far to change the 
whole attitude characteristic of early worship, and sub- 
stitute for the old joyous confidence a painful and 
scrupulous anxiety in all approach to the gods. Among 
the Semites the Arabs furnish an example of the general 
decay of religion, while the nations of Palestine in the 
seventh century Bc. afford an excellent illustration of 
the development of a gloomier type of worship under the 
pressure of accumulated political disasters. On the whole, 
however, what strikes the modern thinker as surprising is 
not that the old joyous type of worship ultimately broke 
down, but that it lasted so long as it did, or even that it 
ever attained a paramount place among nations so advanced 
as the Greeks and the Syrians. This is a matter which 
well deserves attentive consideration. 

First of all, then, it is to be observed that the frame 
of mind in which men are well pleased with themselves, 
with their gods, and with the world, could not have 
dominated antique religion as it did, unless religion had 
been essentially the affair of the community rather than 
of individuals. It was not the business of the gods of 
heathenism to watch, by a series of special providences, 
over the welfare of every individual. It is true that 
individuals laid their private affairs before the gods, and 
asked with prayers and vows for strictly personal blessings. 
But they did this just as they might crave a personal 
boon from a king, or as a son craves a boon from a father, 
without expecting to get all that was asked. What the 
gods might do in this way was done as a matter of 
personal favour, and was no part of their proper function 


LECT VII. THEIR WORSHIPPERS 259 
as heads of the community. The benefits which were 
expected from the gods were of a public character, affect- 
ing the whole community, especially fruitful seasons, 
increase of flocks and herds, and success in war. So long 
as the community flourished the fact that an individual 
was miserable reflected no discredit on divine providence, 
but was rather taken to prove that the sufferer was an 
evil-doer, justly hateful to the gods. Such a man was out 
of place among the happy and prosperous crowd that 
assembled on feast days before the altar; even in Israel, 
Hannah, with her sad face and silent petition, was a strange 
figure at the sanctuary of Shiloh, and the unhappy leper, 
in his lifelong affliction, was shut out from the exercises 
of religion as well as from the privileges of social life. 
So too the mourner was unclean, and his food was not 
brought into the house of God; the very occasions of life 
in which spiritual things are nearest to the Christian, and 
the comfort of religion is most fervently sought, were in 
the ancient world the times when a man was forbidden 
to approach the seat of God’s presence. To us, whose 
habit it is to look at religion in its influence on the life 
and happiness of individuals, this seems a cruel law; nay, 
our sense of justice is offended by a system in which 
misfortunes set up a barrier between a man and his God. 
But whether in civil or in profane matters, the habit of 
the old world was to think much of the community and 
little of the individual life, and no one felt this to be 
unjust even though it bore hardly on himself. The god 
was the god of the nation or of the tribe, and he knew 
and cared for the individual only as a member of the 
community. Why, then, should private misfortune be 
allowed to mar by its ill-omened presence the public 
gladness of the sanctuary ? 

Accordingly the air of habitual satisfaction with them- 


260 JOYOUS CHARACTER LECT. VIL 


selves, their gods and the world, which characterises the 
worship of ancient communities, must be explained without 
reference to the vicissitudes of individual life. And so far 
as the thing requires any other explanation than the 
general insouciance and absorption in the feelings of the 
moment characteristic of the childhood of society, I appre- 
hend that the key to the joyful character of the antique 
religions known to us lies in the fact that they took their 
shape in communities that were progressive and on the 
whole prosperous. If we realise to ourselves the conditions 
of early society, whether in Europe or in Asia, at the 
first daybreak of history, we cannot fail to see that a tribe 
or nation that could not hold its own and make headway 
must soon have been crushed out of existence in the 
incessant feuds it had-to wage with all its neighbours. 
The communities of ancient civilisation were formed by 
the survival of the fittest, and they had all the self- 
confidence and elasticity that are engendered by success 
in the struggle for life. These characters, therefore, are 
reflected in the religious system that grew up with the 
growth of the state, and the type of worship that corre- 
sponded to them was not felt to be inadequate till the 
political system was undermined from within or shattered 
by blows from without. } 

These considerations sufficiently account for the 
development of the habitually joyous temper of ancient 
sacrificial worship. But it is also to be observed that 
when the type was once formed it would not at once 
disappear, even when a change in social conditions 
made it no longer an adequate expression of the habitual 
tone of national life. The most important functions of 
ancient worship were reserved for public occasions, when 
the whole community was stirred by a common emotion , 
and among agricultural nations the stated occasions of 


LECT. VII. OF ANCIENT RELIGION 261 


— ee — 


sacrifice were the natural seasons of festivity, at harvest 
and vintage. At such times every one was ready to cast 
off his cares and rejoice before his god, and so the 
coincidence of religious and agricultural gladness helped 
to keep the old form of worship alive, long after it had 
ceased to be in full harmony with men’s permanent view 
of the world. Moreover it must be remembered that the 
spirit of boisterous mirth which characterised the oldest 
religious festivals was nourished by the act of worship 
itself. The sacrificial feast was not only an expression of 
gladness but a means of driving away care, for it was set 
forth with every circumstance of gaiety, with garlands, 
perfumes and music, as well as with store of meat and 
wine. The sensuous Oriental nature responds to such 
physical stimulus with a readiness foreign to our more 
sluggish temperament; to the Arab it is an excitement 
and a delight of the highest order merely to have flesh to 
eat.1 From the earliest times, therefore, the religious 
gladness of the Semites tended to assume an orgiastic 
character and become a sort of intoxication of the senses, 
in which anxiety and sorrow were drowned for the moment. 
This is apparent in the old Canaanite festivals, such as the 
vintage feast at Shechem described in Judg. ix. 27, and not 
less in the service of the Hebrew high places, as it is char- 
acterised by the prophets. Even at Jerusalem the worship 
must have been boisterous indeed, when Lam. ii. 7 compares 
the shouts of the storming party of the Chaldzans in the 
courts of the temple with the noise of a solemn feast. 
Among the Nabateans and elsewhere the orgiastic char- 
acter of the worship often led in later times to the 
identification of Semitic gods, especially of Dusares, with 


1A current Arabic saying, which I have somewhere seen ascribed to 
Ta’abbata Sharran, reckons the eating of flesh as one of the three great 
delights of life. In Maidani, ii. 22, flesh and wine are classed together as 
seductive luxuries. 


262 ORGIASTIC LECT. VI 


the Greek Dionysus. It is plain that a religion of this 
sort would not necessarily cease to be powerful when it 
ceased to express a habitually joyous view of the world 
and the divine governance; in evil times, when men’s 
thoughts were habitually sombre, they betook themselves 
to the physical excitement of religion, as men now take 
refuge in wine. That this is not a fancy picture is clear 
from Isaiah’s description of the conduct of his contempor- 
aries during the approach of the Assyrians to Jerusalem,1 
when the multiplied sacrifices that were offered to avert 
the disaster degenerated into a drunken carnival—* Let 
us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” And so in 
general when an act of Semitic worship began with 
sorrow and lamentation—as in the mourning for Adonis, 
or in the great atoning ceremonies which became common 
in later times—a swift revulsion of feeling followed, and 
the gloomy part of the service was presently succeeded by 
a burst of hilarious revelry, which, in later times at least, 
was not a purely spontaneous expression of the conviction 
that man is reconciled with the powers that govern his life 
and rule the universe, but in great measure a mere orgiastic 
excitement. The nerves were strung to the utmost tension 
in the sombre part of the ceremony, and the natural reaction 
was fed by the physical stimulus of the revelry that followed. 

This, however, is not a picture of what Semitic religion 
was from the first, and in its ordinary exercises, but of the 
shape it tended to assume in extraordinary times of national 
calamity, and still more under the habitual pressure of 
grinding despotism, when the general tone of social life 
was no longer bright and hopeful, but stood in painful 
contrast to the joyous temper proper to the traditional 
forms of worship. Ancient heathenism was not made for 
such times, but for seasons of national prosperity, when its 


1 Isa, xxii, 12, 13, compared with i. 11 sqq. 


LECT. VU. RELIGION ‘ 263 


joyous rites were the appropriate expression for the happy 
fellowship that united the god and his worshippers to 
the satisfaction of both parties. Then the enthusiasm of 
the worshipping throng was genuine. Men came to the 
sanctuary to give free vent to habitual feelings of thankful 
confidence in their god, and warmed themselves into excite- 
ment in a perfectly natural way by feasting together, as 
people still do when they rejoice together. 

In acts of worship we expect to find the religious ideal 
expressed in its purest form, and we cannot easily think 
well of a type of religion whose ritual culminates in a 
jovial feast. It seems that such a faith sought nothing 
higher than a condition of physical bien étre, and in one 
sense this judgment is just. The good things desired of 
the gods were the blessings of earthly life, not spiritual 
but carnal things. But Semitic heathenism was redeemed 
from mere materialism by the fact that religion was not 
the affair of the individual but of the community. The 
ideal was earthly, but it was not selfish. In rejoicing 
before his god a man rejoiced with and for the welfare 
of his kindred, his neighbours and his country, and, in 
renewing by a solemn act of worship the bond that united 
him to his god, he also renewed the bonds of family social 
and national obligation. We have seen that the compact 
between the god and the community of his worshippers 
was not held to pledge the deity to make the private cares 
of each member of the community his own. The gods had 
their favourites no doubt, for whom they were prepared to 
do many things that they were not bound to do; but no 
man could approach his god in a purely personal matter 
with that spirit of absolute confidence which I have 
described as characteristic of antique religions; it was the 
community, and not the individual, that was sure of the 
permanent and unfailing help of its deity. It was a 


264 ' THE SOCIAL ELEMENT LECT. VIL 


national not a personal providence that was taught by 
ancient religion. So much was this the case that in purely 
personal concerns the ancients were very apt to turn, not 
to the recognised religion of the family or of the state, but 
to magical superstitions. The gods watched over a man’s 
civic life, they gave him his share in public benefits, the 
annual largess of the harvest and the vintage, national 
peace or victory over enemies, and so forth, but they were 
not sure helpers in every private need, and above all they 
would not help him in matters that were against the 
interests of the community as a whole. There was there- 
fore a whole region of possible needs and desires for which 
religion could and would do nothing; and if supernatural 
help was sought in such things it had to be sought through 
magical ceremonies, designed to purchase or constrain the 
favour of demoniac powers with which the public religion 
had nothing to do. Not only did these magical supersti- 
tions lie outside religion, but in all well-ordered states they 
were regarded as illicit. A man had no right to enter 
into private relations with supernatural powers that might 
help him at the expense of the community to which he 
belonged. In his relations to the unseen he was bound 
always to think and act with and for the community, and 
not for himself alone. 

With this it accords that every complete act of worship 
—for a mere vow was not a complete act till it was 
fulfilled by presenting a sacrifice—had a public or quasi- 
public character. Most sacrifices were offered on fixed 
occasions, at the great communal or national feasts, but 
even a private offering was not complete without guests, 
and the surplus of sacrificial flesh was not sold but 
distributed with an open hand. Thus every act of 


1 See above, p. 254. In Greece, in later times, sacrificial flesh was exposed 
for sale (1 Cor. x. 25). 


LECT. VII. IN RELIGION 265 


worship expressed the idea that man does not live 
for himself only but for his fellows, and that this partner- 
ship of social interests is the sphere over which the 
gods preside and on which they bestow their assured 
blessing. 

The ethical significance which thus appertains to the 
sacrificial meal, viewed as a social act, received particular 
emphasis from certain ancient customs and ideas connected 
with eating and drinking. According to antique ideas, 
those who eat and drink together are by this very act tied 
to one another by a bond of friendship and mutual 
obligation. Hence when we find that in ancient religions 
all the ordinary functions of worship are summed up in 
the sacrificial meal, and that the ordinary intercourse 
between gods and men has no other form, we are to 
remember that the act of eating and drinking together is 
the solemn and stated expression of the fact that all 
who share the meal are brethren, and that the duties of 
friendship and brotherhood are implicitly acknowledged in 
their common act. By admitting man to his table the god 
admits him to his friendship; but this favour is extended 
to no man in his mere private capacity; he is received as 
one of a community, to eat and drink along with his 
fellows, and in the same measure as the act of worship 
cements the bond between him and his god, it cements also 
the bond between him and his brethren in the common 
faith. 

We have now reached a point in our discussion at 
which it is possible to form some general estimate of the 
ethical value of the type of religion which has been 
described. The power of religion over life is twofold, 
lying partly in its association with particular precepts of 
conduct, to which it supplies a supernatural sanction, but 
mainly in its influence on the general tone and temper 


266 ETHICAL VALUE OF LECT. VII. 


of men’s minds, which it elevates to higher courage and 
purpose, and raises above a brutal servitude to the 
physical wants of the moment, by teaching men that their 
lives and happiness are not the mere sport of the blind 
forces of nature, but are watched over and cared for by 
a higher power. As a spring of action this influence is 
more potent than the fear of supernatural sanctions, for 
it is stimulative, while the other is only regulative. But 
to produce a moral effect on life the two must go together ; 
a man’s actions must be not only supported by the feeling 
that the divine help is with him, but regulated by the 
conviction that that help will not accompany him except 
on the right path. In ancient religion, as it appears 
among the Semites, the confident assurance of divine help 
belongs, not to each man in his private concerns, but to 
the community in its public functions and public aims; and 
it is this assurance that is expressed in public acts of 
worship, where all the members of the community meet 
together to eat and drink at the table of their god, and 
so renew the sense that he and they are altogether at one. 
Now, if we look at the whole community of worshippers 
as absolutely one, personify them and think of them as a 
single individual, it is plain that the effect of this type 
of religion must be regarded as merely stimulative and 
not regulative. When the community is at one with 
itself and at one with its god, it may, for anything that 
religion has to say, do exactly what it pleases towards 
all who are outside it. Its friends are the god’s friends, 
its enemies the god’s enemies; it takes its god with it in 
whatever it chooses to do. As the ancient communities 
of religion are tribes or nations, this is as much as to say 
that, properly speaking, ancient religion has no influence 
on intertribal or international morality—in such matters 
the god simply goes with his own nation or his own tribe. 


LECT. VII. SACRIFICIAL RELIGION 267 


So long as we consider the tribe or nation of common 
religion as a single subject, the influence of religion is 
limited to an increase of the national self-confidence—a 
quality very useful in the continual struggle for life that 
was waged between ancient communities, but which beyond 
this has no moral value. 

But the case 1s very different when we look at the 
religious community as made up of a multitude of 
individuals, each of whom has private as well as public 
purposes and desires. In this aspect it is the regulative 
influence of ancient religion that is predominant, for the 
good things which religion holds forth are promised to the 
individual only in so far as he lives in and for the com- 
munity. The conception of man’s chief good set forth 
in the social act of sacrificial worship is the happiness 
of the individual in the happiness of the community, and 
thus the whole force of ancient religion is directed, so far 
as the individual is concerned, to maintain the civil virtues 
of loyalty and devotion to a man’s fellows at a pitch of 
confident enthusiasm, to teach him to set his highest good 
in the prosperity of the society of which he is a member, 
not doubting that in so doing he has the divine power on 
his side and has given his life to a cause that cannot fail. 
This devotion to the common weal was, as every one knows, 
the mainspring of ancient morality and the source of all 
the heroic virtues of which ancient history presents so 
many illustrious examples. In ancient society, therefore, 
the religious ideal expressed in the act of social worship 
and the ethical ideal which governed the conduct of daily 
life were wholly at one, and all morality—as morality was 
then understood—was consecrated and enforced by religious 
motives and sanctions. 

These observations are fully applicable only to the 
typical form of ancient religion, when it was still strictly 


268 ANCIENT MORALITY LECT, VIL 
tribal or national. When nationality and religion began 
to fall apart, certain worships assumed a character more 
or less cosmopolitan. Even in heathenism, therefore, in 
its more advanced forms, the gods, or at least certain gods, 
are in some measure the guardians of universal morality, 
and not merely of communal loyalty. But what was thus 
gained in comprehensiveness was lost in intensity and 
strength of religious feeling, and the advance towards 
ethical universalism, which was made with feeble and 
uncertain steps, was never sufficient to make up for the 
decline of the old heroic virtues that were fostered by the 
narrower type of national faith. 


LECTURE VIII 
THE ORIGINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF ANIMAL SACRIFICE 


EnouGH has been said as to the significance of the sacri- 
ficial feast as we find it among ancient nations no longer 
barbarous. But to understand the matter fully we must 
trace it back to its origin in a state of society much 
more primitive than that of the agricultural Semites or 
Greeks. 

The sacrificial meal was an appropriate expression of the 
antique ideal of religious life, not merely because it was a 
social act and an act in which the god and his worshippers 
were conceived as partaking together, but because, as has 
already been said, the very act of eating and drinking 
with a man was a symbol and a confirmation of fellowship 
and mutual social obligations. The one thing directly 
expressed in the sacrificial meal is that the god and his 
worshippers are commensals, but every other point in their 
mutual relations is included in what this involves. Those 
who sit at meat together are united for all social effects ; 
those who do not eat together are aliens to one another, 
without fellowship in religion and without reciprocal social 
duties. The extent to which this view prevailed among 
the ancient Semites, and still prevails among the Arabs, 
may be brought out most clearly by reference to the law of 
hospitality. Among the Arabs every stranger whom one 
meets in the desert is a natural enemy, and has no protec- 
tion against violence except his own strong hand or the fear 

269 


270 THE BOND LECT. VIL 


that his tribe will avenge him if his blood be spilt! But 
if I have eaten the smallest morsel of food with a man, 
I have nothing further to fear from him; “there is salt 
between us,’ and he is bound not only to do me no harm, 
but to help and defend me as if I were his brother.? So 
far was this principle carried by the old Arabs, that Zaid 
al-Khail, a famous warrior in the days of Mohammed, 
refused to slay a vagabond who carried off his camels, 
because the thief had surreptitiously drunk from his 
father’s milk bowl before committing the theft.2 It does 
not indeed follow as a matter of course that because I have 
eaten once with a man I am permanently his friend, for 
the bond of union is conceived in a very realistic way, and 
strictly speaking lasts no longer than the food may be 
supposed to remain in my system. But the temporary 
bond is confirmed by repetition,® and readily passes into a 
permanent tie confirmed by an oath. “There was a sworn 
alliance between the Lihyan and the Mostalic, they were 

1 This is the meaning of Gen. iv. 14 sg. Cain is ‘‘ driven out from the 
face of the cultivated land” into the desert, where his only protection is 
the law of blood revenge. 

2 The milha, or bond of salt, is not dependent on the actual use of mineral 
salt with the food by which the bond is constituted. Milk, for example, 
will serve the purpose. Cf. Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahabys, i. 329, and 
Kamit, p. 284, especially the verse of Abu ’1-Tamahan there cited, where salt 
is interpreted to mean ‘‘ milk.” 

8 Agh. xvi. 51; cf. Kinship, p. 176 sq. 

4 Burton, Pilgrimage, iii. 84 (1st ed.), says that some tribes ‘‘ require to 
renew the bond every twenty-four hours,” as otherwise, to use their own 
phrase, ‘‘the salt is not in their stomachs” (almost the same phrase is used 
in the verse of Abu ’l-Tamahan referred to above). But usually the protec- 
tion extended to a guest lasts three days and a third after his departure 
(Burckhardt, op. cit. i. 186); or, according to Doughty, i. 228, two nights 
and the day between. A curious example of the degree to which these 
notions might be pushed is given in the Amthal of Mofaddal al-Dabbi, 
Const. A. H. 1300, p. 46, where a man claims and obtains the help of Al- 
Harith in recovering his stolen camels, because the water that was still in 
their stomachs when they were taken from him had been drawn with the 
help of a rope borrowed from Al-Harith’s herdsmen, 


5 “QO enemy of God, wilt thou slay this Jew? Much of the fat on thy 
paunch is of his substance” (Ibn Hisham, p. 553 sq.). . 


: 
; 


LECT. VIII OF FOOD 271 


wont to eat and drink together.”! This phrase of an Arab 
narrator supplies exactly what is wanted to define the 
significance of the sacrificial meal. The god and his 
worshippers are wont to eat and drink together, and by 
this token their fellowship is declared and sealed. 

The ethical significance of the common meal can be 
most adequately illustrated from Arabian usage, but it was 
not confined to the Arabs. The Old Testament records 
many cases where a covenant was sealed by the parties 
eating and drinking together. In most of these indeed the 
meal is sacrificial, so that it is not at once clear that two 
men are bound to each other merely by partaking of the 
same dish, unless the deity is taken in as a third party to 
the covenant. The value of the Arabian evidence is that 
it supplies proof that the bond of food is valid of itself, 
that religion may be called in to confirm and strengthen it, 
but that the essence of the thing lies in the physical act of 
eating together. That this was also the case among the 
Hebrews and Canaanites may be safely concluded from 
analogy, and appears to receive direct confirmation from 
Josh. ix, 14, where the Israelites enter into alliance with 
the Gibeonites by taking of their victuals, without con- 
sulting Jehovah. A formal league confirmed by an oath 
follows, but by accepting the proffered food the Israelites 
are already committed to the alliance. 

But we have not yet got to the root of the matter. 
What is the ultimate nature of the fellowship which is 
constituted or declared when men eat and drink together ? 
In our complicated society fellowship has many types and 
many degrees; men may be united by bonds of duty and 
honour for certain purposes, and stand quite apart in all 


1 Diw. Hodh. No. 87 (Kosegarten’s ed. p. 170). In Sukkari’s account of 
the battle of Coshiwa (William Wright, Nacd id, p. 20) a captive refuses 
to eat the food of his captor who has slain his son, and thus apparently 
keeps his right of blood revenge alive. 


272 FOOD AND LECT. VIIL 


other things. Even in ancient times—for example, in the 
Old Testament—-we find the sacrament of a common meal 
introduced to seal engagements of various kinds. But in 
every case the engagement is absolute and inviolable; it 
constitutes what in the language of ethics is called a duty 
of perfect obligation. Now in the most primitive society 
there is only one kind of fellowship which is absolute and 
inviolable. To the primitive man all other men fall under 
two classes, those to whom his life is sacred and those to 
whom it is not sacred. The former are his fellows; the 
latter are strangers and potential foemen, with whom it is 
absurd to think of forming any inviolable tie unless they 
are first brought into the circle within which each man’s 
life is sacred to all his comrades. 

But that circle again corresponds to the circle of 
kinship, for the practical test of kinship is that the 
whole kin is answerable for the life of each of its 
members. By the rules of early society, if I slay my 
kinsman, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, the act 
is murder, and is punished by expulsion from the kin;? 
if my kinsman is slain by an outsider I and every other 
member of my kin are bound to avenge his death by 
killing the manslayer or some member of his kin. It 
is obvious that under such a system there can be no 
inviolable fellowship except between men of the same 
blood. For the duty of blood revenge is paramount, and 
every other obligation is dissolved as soon as it comes into 
conflict with the claims of blood. I cannot bind myself 
absolutely to a man, even for a temporary purpose, unless 
during the time of our engagement he is put into a 
kinsman’s place. And this is as much as to say that a 


1 Even in Homeric society no bloodwit can be accepted for slaughter 
within the kin; a point which is commonly overlooked, e.g. by Buchholz, 
Hom. Real, II. i. 76. 


LECT. VIII. KINSHIP 273 


stranger cannot become bound to me, unless at the same 
time he becomes bound to all my kinsmen in exactly the 
same way. Such is, in fact, the law of the desert; when 
any member of a clan receives an outsider through the 
bond of salt, the whole clan is bound by his act, and must, 
while the engagement lasts, receive the stranger as one of 
themselves.! 

The idea that kinship is not purely an affair of birth, 
but may be acquired, has quite fallen out of our circle 
of ideas; but so, for that matter, has the primitive con- 
ception of kindred itself. To us kinship has no absolute 
value, but is measured by degrees, and means much or 
little, or nothing at all, according to its degree and other 
circumstances. In ancient times, on the contrary, the 
fundamental obligations of kinship had nothing to do 
with degrees of relationship, but rested with absolute 
and identical force on every member of the clan. To 
know that a man’s life was sacred to me, and that every 
blood-feud that touched him involved me also, it was not 
necessary for me to count cousinship with him by reckon- 
ing up to our common ancestor; it was enough that we 
belonged to the same clan and bore the same clan-name. 
What was my clan was determined by customary law, 
which was not the same in all stages of society; in the 
earliest Semitic communities a man was of his mother’s 
clan, in later times he belonged to the clan of his father. 
But the essential idea of kinship was independent of the 
particular form of the law. A kin was a group of persons 
whose lives were so bound up together, in what must be 
called a physical unity, that they could be treated as parts 

1 This of course is to be understood only of the fundamental rights and 
duties which turn on the sanctity of kindred blood. The secondary 
privileges of kinship, in matters of inheritance and the like, lie outside of 
the present argument, and with regard to them the covenanted ally had not 


the full rights of a kinsman (Kinship, p. 55 sq.). 
18 


274 KINSHIP AND LECT. VIL 


of one common life. The members of one kindred looked 
on themselves as one living whole, a single animated mass 
of blood, flesh and bones, of which no member could be 
touched without all the members suffering. This point 
of view is expressed in the Semitic tongues in many 
familiar forms of speech. In a case of homicide Arabian 
tribesmen do not say, “The blood of M. or N. has been 
spilt,” naming the man; they say, “Our blood has been 
spilt.” In Hebrew the phrase by which one claims 
kinship is “I am your bone and your flesh.”+ Both in 
Hebrew and in Arabic “ flesh ” is synonymous with “clan ” 
or kindred group. ‘To us all this seems mere metaphor, 
from which no practical consequences can follow. But 
in early thought there is no sharp line between the meta- 
phorical and the literal, between the way of expressing a 
thing and the way of conceiving it; phrases and synibols 
are treated as realities. Now, if kinship means participa- 
tion in a common mass of. flesh blood and bones, it is 
natural that it should be regarded as dependent, not 
merely on the fact that a man was born of his mother’s 
body, and so was from his birth a part of her flesh, but 
also on the not less significant fact that he was nourished 
by her milk. And so we find that among the Arabs there 
is a tie of milk, as well as of blood, which unites the 
foster-child to his foster-mother and her kin. Again, 
after the child is weaned, his flesh and blood continue to 
be nourished and renewed by the food which he shares 
with his commensals, so that commensality can be thought 
of (1) as confirming or even (2) as constituting kinship in 
a very real sense.? 

Judg. ix. 2; 2 Sam. v. 1. Conversely in acknowledging kinship the 
phrase is ‘‘ Thou art my bone and my flesh ” (Gen. xxix. 14 ; 2 Sam. xix. 12); 
ef. Gen. xxxvii. 27, ‘‘our brother and our flesh.” 


* Lev. xxv. 49; Kinship, p. 175. 
3 Cf. Kinship, p. 176 sq. 


- » a si 
ies ee 


ae ae 


LECT. VIL COMMON LIFE 275 

As regards their bearing on the doctrine of sacrifice 
it will conduce to clearness if we keep these two points 
distinct. Primarily the circle of common religion and of 
common social duties was identical with that of natural 
kinship,’ and the god himself was conceived as a being of 
the same stock with his worshippers. It was natural, 
therefore, that the kinsmen and their kindred god should 
seal and strengthen their fellowship by meeting together 
from time to time to nourish their common life by a 
common meal, to which those outside the kin were not 
admitted. A good example of this kind of clan sacrifice, 
in which a whole kinship periodically joins, is afforded by 
the Roman sacra gentilicia. As in primitive society no 
man can belong to more than one kindred, so among the 
Romans no one could share in the sacra of two gentes— 
to do so was to confound the ritual and contaminate the 
purity of the gens. The sacra consisted in common anni- 
versary sacrifices, in which the clansmen honoured the 
gods of the clan and after them the “demons” of their 
ancestors, so that the whole kin living and dead were 
brought together in the service.” That the earliest sacri- 
ficial feasts among the Semites were of the nature of sacra 
gentilicia is matter of inference rather than of direct 
evidence, but is not on that account less certain. For 
that the Semites form no exception to the general rule 
that the circle of religion and of kinship were originally 
identical, has been shown in Lecture II. The only thing, 
therefore, for which additional proof is needed is that the 
sacrificial ritual of the Semites already existed in this 
primitive form of society. That this was so is morally 
certain on general grounds; for an institution like the 


1 Supra, p. 50. 
* For proofs and further details see the evidence collected by Marquardt, 
Rom, Staatsverwaltung, 2nd ed., iii. 130 sq. 


276 GENTILE LECT. VIII. 
sacrificial meal, which occurs with the same general 
features all over the world, and is found among the most 
primitive peoples, must, in the nature of things, date 
from the earliest stage of social organisation. And the 
general argument is confirmed by the fact that after several 
clans had begun to frequent the same sanctuary and 
worship the same god, the worshippers still grouped them- 
selves for sacrificial purposes on the principle of kinship. 
In the days of Saul and David all the tribes of Israel 
had long been united in the worship of Jehovah, yet the 
clans still maintained their annual gentile sacrifice, at 
which every member of the group was bound to be 
present. But evidence more decisive comes to us from 
Arabia, where, as we have seen, men would not eat 
together at all unless they were united by kinship or by 
a covenant that had the same effect as natural kinship. 
Under such a rule the sacrificial feast must have been 
confined to kinsmen, and the clan was the largest circle 
that could unite in a sacrificial act. And so, though the 
great sanctuaries of heathen Arabia were frequented at 
the pilgrimage feasts by men of different tribes, who met 
peaceably for a season under the protection of the truce 
of God, we find that their participation in the worship of 
the same holy place did not bind alien clans together in 
any religious unity; they worshipped side by side, but 
not together. It is only under Islam that the pilgrimage 


1] Sam. xx. 6, 29. The word mishpaha, which the English Bible here 
and elsewhere renders ‘‘family,’’ denotes not a household but a clan. In 
verse 29 the true reading is indicated by the Septuagint, and has been re- 


stored by Wellhausen COs » WY Ni), It was not David’s brother, but 


his brethren, that is his clansmen, that enjoined his presence. The annual 
festivity, the duty of all clansmen to attend, the expectation that this 
sacred duty would be accepted as a valid excuse for absence from court 
even at the king’s new-moon sacrifice, are so many points of correspondence 
with the Roman gentile worship ; cf. Gellius, xvi. 4. 3, and the other passages 
cited by Marquardt, Rim. Staatsverwaliwng, 2nd ed., iii, 132, note 4. 


ro ey 


LECT. VI. SACRIFICE 277 
becomes a bond of religious fellowship, whereas in the 
times of heathenism it was the correct usage that the 
different tribes, before they broke up from the feast, should 
engage in a rivalry of self-exaltation and mutual abuse, 
which sent them home with all their old jealousies freshly 
inflamed. 

That the sacrificial meal was originally a feast of kins- 
men, is apt to suggest to modern minds the idea that its 
primitive type is to be sought in the household circle, and 
that public sacrifices, in which the whole clan united, are 
merely an extension of such an act of domestic worship 
as in ancient Rome accompanied every family meal. The 
Roman family never rose from supper till a portion of food 
had been laid on the burning hearth as an offering to the 
Lares, and the current opinion, which regards the gens as 
nothing more than an enlarged household, naturally looks 
on the gentile sacrifice as an enlargement of this domestic 
rite. But the notion that the clan is only a larger house- 
hold is not consistent with the results of modern research. 
Kinship is an older thing than family life, and in the 
most primitive societies known to us the family or house- 
hold group was not a subdivision of the clan, but contained 
members of more than one kindred. As a rule the savage 

1 See Goldziher, Muh. Stud. i. 56. The prayer and exhortation of the 
leader of the procession of tribes from ‘Arafa (Agh. iii. 4; Wellh. p. 191) 
seems to me to be meant for his own tribe alone. The prayer for ‘‘ peace 
among our women, a continuous range of pasture occupied by our herdsmen, 
wealth placed in the hands of our most generous men,” asks only blessings 
for the tribe, and indeed occurs elsewhere as a form of blessing addressed to 
a tribe (Agh. xix. 132. 6). And the admonition to observe treaties, honour 
clients, and be hospitable to guests, contains nothing that was not a 
point of tribal morality. The «waza, or right to give the signal for dis- 
solving the worshipping assembly, belonged to a particular tribe; it was 
the right to start first. The man who gave the sign to this tribe closed 
the service for them by a prayer and admonition. This is all that I can 
gather from the passage, and it does not prove that the tribes had any 


other religious communion than was involved in their being in one place 
at one time. 


278 GENTILE LECT. VII. 


man may not marry a clanswoman, and the children are of 
the mother’s kin, and therefore have no communion of 
blood religion with their father. In such a society there 
is hardly any family life, and there can be no sacred 
household meal. Before the family meal can acquire the 
religious significance that it possessed in Rome, one of two 
things must take place: either the primitive association 
of religion with kinship must be dissolved, or means must 
have been found to make the whole household of one 
blood, as was done in Rome by the rule that the wife 
upon her marriage was adopted into her husband’s gens.} 
The rudest nations have religious rules about food, based 
on the principle of kinship, viz. that a man may not eat the 
totem animal of his clan; and they generally have some 
rites of the nature of the sacrificial feast of kinsmen; but 
it is not the custom of savages to take their ordinary daily 
food in a social way, in regular domestic meals. Their 
habit is to eat irregularly and apart, and this habit is 
strengthened by the religious rules, which often forbid to 
one member of a household the food which is permitted to 
another. 

We have no direct evidence as to the rules and habits 
of the Semites in the state of primitive savagery, though 
there is ample proof of an indirect kind that they originally 
reckoned kinship through the mother, and that men often, 
if not always, took their wives from strange kins. It is 
to be presumed that at this stage of society the Semite did 
not eat with his wife and children, and it is certain that if 
he did so the meal could not have had a religious character, 
as an acknowledgment and seal of kinship and adherence 


1 In Greece, according to the testimony of Theophrastus, ap. Porph., De 
Abst. ii. 20 (Bernays, p. 68), it was customary to pay to the gods an aparche 
of every meal. The term axrdpytrda: seems to place this offering under the 
head of gifts rather than of sacrificial communion, and the gods to whom the 
offering was made were not, as at Rome, family gods. 


oe ee 


LECT. Vul, SACRIFICE 279 


to a kindred god. But in fact the family meal never 
became a fixed institution among the Semites generally. 
In Egypt, down to the present day, many persons hardly 
ever eat with their wives and children,’ and, among the 
Arabs, boys who are not of full age do not presume to eat 
in the presence of their parents, but take their meals 
separately or with the women of the house.2 No doubt 
the seclusion of women has retarded the development 
of family life in Mohammedan countries; but for most 
purposes this seclusion has never taken much hold on the 
desert, and yet in northern Arabia no woman will eat * 
before men. I apprehend that these customs were 
originally formed at a time when a man and his wife and 
family were not usually of one kin, and when only kinsmen 
would eat together. But be this as it may, the fact 
remains that in Arabia the daily family meal has never 
been an established institution with such a_ religious 
significance as attaches to the Roman supper.® 

The sacrificial feast, therefore, cannot be traced back to 
the domestic meal, but must be considered as having been 


1Lene, Mod. Egyptians, 5th ed., i. 179; cf. Arabian Nights, chap. ii. 
note 17. 

* Burckhardt, Bed. and Wah. i. 355 ; Doughty, ii. 142. 

3 Burckhardt, op. cit. i. 349. Conversely Ibn Mojawir, ap. Sprenger, 
Postrouten, p. 151, tells of southern Arabs who would rather die than accept 
food at the hand of a woman. 

4In Arabia, even in historical times, the wife was not adopted into her 
husband’s kin. The children in historical times were generally reckoned to 
the father’s stock ; but there is much reason to think that this new rule of 
kinship, when it first came in, did not mean that the infant was born into 
his father’s clan, but that he was adopted into it by a formal act, which did 
not always take place in infancy. We find that young children follow their 
mother (Kinship, p. 137 sq.), and that the law of blood revenge did not 
prevent fathers from killing their young daughters (bid. p. 153 sq.). Of 
this more hereafter. 

° The naming of God, by which every meal is consecrated according to 
Mohammed’s precept, seems in ancient times to have been practised only 
when a victim was slaughtered; cf. Wellh. p. 117. Here the taAlil 
corresponds to the blessing of the sacrifice, 1 Sam. ix. 13. 


280 GENTILE LECT. VIII 


henner ears ehsaiaigeehdene asa fae en se 


from the first a public feast of clansmen. That this is 
true not only for Arabia but for the Semites as a whole 
might be inferred on general grounds, inasmuch as all 
Semitic worship manifestly springs from a common origin, 
and the inference is confirmed by the observation that 
even among the agricultural Semites there is no trace of a 
sacrificial character being attached to ordinary household 
meals. The domestic hearth among the Semites was not 
an altar as it was at Rome! 

Almost all varieties of human food were offered to the 
gods, and any kind of food suffices, according to the laws 
of Arabian hospitality, to establish that bond between two 
men which in the last resort rests on the principle that 
only kinsmen eat together. It may seem, therefore, that 
in the abstract any sort of meal publicly partaken of by a 
company of kinsmen may constitute a sacrificial feast. The 
distinction between the feast and an ordinary meal lies, 
it may seem, not in the material or the copiousness of 
the repast, but in its public character. When men eat 
alone they do not invite the god to share their food, but 
when the clan eats together as a kindred unity the kindred 
god must also be of the party. 

Practically, however, there is no sacrificial feast accord- 
ing to Semitic usage except where a victim is slaughtered. 
The rule of the Levitical law, that a cereal oblation, when 
offered alone, belongs wholly to the god and gives no 
occasion for a feast of the worshippers, agrees with the 
older history, in which we never find a sacrificial meal of 
which flesh does not form part. Among the Arabs the 
usage is the same; a religious banquet implies a victim. 
It appears, therefore, to look at the matter from its merely 
human side, that the slaughter of a victim must have been 


1The passover became a sort of household sacrifice after the exile, but 
was not so originally. See Wellhausen, Prolegomena, chap. iii, 


5 
j 
4 
7 
' 


a > a 


LECT. VIII. SACRIFICE 281 
in early times the only thing that brought the clan together 
for a stated meal. Conversely, every slaughter was a clan 
sacrifice, that is, a domestic animal was not slain except to 
procure the material for a public meal of kinsmen. This 
last proposition seems startling, but it is confirmed by the 
direct evidence of Nilus as to the habits of the Arabs of 
the Sinaitic desert towards the close of the fourth Christian 
century. ‘The ordinary sustenance of these Saracens was 
derived from pillage or from hunting, to which, no doubt, 
must be added, as a main element, the milk of their herds. 
When these supplies failed they fell back on the flesh 
of their camels, one of which was slain for each clan 
(cuyyévera) or for each group which habitually pitched 
their tents together (ovoxyvia)—which according to 
known Arab usage would always be a fraction of a 
zlan—and the flesh was hastily devoured by the kinsmen 
in dog-like fashion, half raw and merely softened over 
the fire.! 

To grasp the force of this evidence we must remember 
that, beyond question, there was at this time among the 
Saracens private property in camels, and that therefore, so 
far as the law of property went, there could be no reason 
why a man should not kill a beast for the use of his own 
family. And though a whole camel might be too much 
for a single household to eat fresh, the Arabs knew and 
practised the art of preserving flesh by cutting it into strips 
and drying them in the sun. Under these circumstances 
private slaughter could not have failed to be customary, 
unless it was absolutely forbidden by tribal usage. In 
short, it appears that while milk, game, the fruits of pillage 
were private food which might be eaten in any way, the 


1 Nili opera quedam nondum edita (Paris, 1639), p. 27.—The ovyyévera 
answers to the Arabic bafn, the cvoxnvia to the Arabic hayy, in the sense of 
encampment. See Kinship, p. 41 sq. 


282 SARACEN LECT. VIIL 


camel was not allowed to be killed and eaten except in a 
public rite, at which all the kinsmen assisted. 

This evidence is all the more remarkable because, 
among the Saracens of whom Nilus speaks, the slaughter 
of a camel in times of hunger does not seem to have been 
considered as a sacrifice to the gods. For a couple of pages 
later he speaks expressly of the sacrifices which these 
Arabs offered to the morning star, the sole deity that they 
acknowledged. These could be performed only when the 
star was visible, and the whole victim—flesh, skin and 
bones—had to be devoured before the sun rose upon it, and 
the day-star disappeared. As this form of sacrifice was 
necessarily confined to seasons when the planet Venus was 
a morning star, while the necessity for slaughtering a 
camel as food might arise at any season, it is to be inferred 
that in the latter case the victim was not recognised as 
having a sacrificial character. The Saracens, in fact, had 
outlived the stage in which no necessity can justify 
slaughter that is not sacrificial. The principle that the 
god claims his share in every slaughter has its origin in the 
religion of kinship, and dates from a time when the tribal 
god was himself a member of the tribal stock, so that his 
participation in the sacrificial feast was only one aspect 
of the rule that no kinsman must be excluded from a 
share in the victim. But the Saracens of Nilus, like the 
Arabs generally in the last ages of heathenism, had ceased 
to do sacrifice to the tribal or clan gods with whose 
worship the feast of kinsmen was originally connected. 
The planet Venus, or Lucifer, was not a tribal deity, but, 
as we know from a variety of sources, was worshipped by 
all the northern Arabs, to whatever kin they belonged. 
It is not therefore surprising that in case of necessity 
we should meet with a slaughter in which the non-tribal 
deity had no part; but it is noteworthy that, after the 


LECT, vim. ‘SACRIFICE 283 


victim had lost its sacrificial character, it was still deemed 
necessary that the slaughter should be the affair of the 
whole kindred. That this was so, while among the 
Hebrews, on the other hand, the rule that all legitimate 
slaughter is sacrifice survived long after householders were 
permitted to make private sacrifices on their own account, 
is characteristic of the peculiar development of Arabia, 
where, as Wellhausen has justly remarked, religious feeling 
was quite put in the shade by the feeling for the sanctity 
of kindred blood. Elsewhere among the Semites we see 
the old religion surviving the tribal system on which it 
was based, and accommodating itself to the new forms of 
national life; but in Arabia the rules and customs of the 
kin retained the sanctity which they originally derived 
from their connection with the religion of the kin, long 
after the kindred god had been forgotten or had sunk into 
quite a subordinate place. I take it, however, that the 
eating of camels’ flesh continued to be regarded by the 
Arabs as in some sense a religious act, even when it was 
no longer associated with a formal act of sacrifice; for 
abstinence from the flesh of camels and wild asses was 
prescribed by Simeon Stylites to his Saracen converts! 
and traces of an idolatrous significance in feasts of camels’ 
flesh appear in Mohammedan tradition.” 

The persistence among the Arabs of the scruple against 
private slaughter for a man’s own personal use may, I 
think, be traced in a modified form in other parts of Arabia 
and long after the time of Nilus. Even in modern times, 


1 Theodoret, ed. Nosselt, iii. 1274 sq. 

2 Wellh. p. 117; Kinship, p. 60. These traces are the more worthy 
of notice because we also find indications that, down to the time of the 
prophet, or even later, the idea prevailed that camels, or at all events 
certain breeds of camels, were of demoniac origin; see Cazwini, ii. 42, 
and other authorities cited by Vloten in the Vienna Oriental Journal, 
Vii. 239. 


284 SARACEN _ LECT. VI. 


when a sheep or camel is slain in honour of a guest, the 
good old custom is that the host keeps open house for his 
neighbours, or at least distributes portions of the flesh as 
far as it will go. To do otherwise is still deemed churlish, 
though not illegal, and the old Arabic literature leaves the 
impression that in ancient times this feeling was still 
stronger than it is now, and that the whole encampment 
was considered when a beast was slain for food! But be 
this as it may, it is highly significant to find that, even in 
one branch of the Arabian race, the doctrine that hunger 
itself does not justify slaughter, except as the act of the 
clan, was so deeply rooted as to survive the doctrine that 
all slaughter is sacrifice. This fact is sufficient to remove 
the last doubt as to the proposition that all sacrifice was 
originally clan sacrifice, and at the same time it puts the © 
slaughter of a victim in a new light, by classing it among 
the acts which, in primitive society, are illegal to an 
individual, and can only be justified when the whole clan 
shares the responsibility of the deed. So far as I know, 
there is only one class of actions recognised by early nations 
to which this description applies, viz. actions which involve 
an invasion of the sanctity of the tribal blood. In fact, a 
life which no single tribesman is allowed to invade, and 
which can be sacrificed only by the consent and common 
action of the kin, stands on the same footing with the life 
of the fellow-tribesman. Neither may be taken away by 
private violence, but only by the consent of the kindred 


1 Compare especially the story of Mawiya’s courtship (Agh. xvi. 103 sq. ; 
Caussin de Perceval, ii. 613). The beggar’s claim to a share in the feast is 
doubtless ultimately based on religious and tribal usage rather than on 
personal generosity. Cf. Deut. xxvi. 13. Similarly among the Zulus, 
‘‘when a man kills a cow—which, however, is seldom and reluctantly done, 
unless it happens to be stolen property—the whole population of the hamlet 
assemble to eat it without invitation ; and people living at a distance of ten 
miles will also come to partake of the feast’? (Shaw, Memorials of South 
Africa, p. 59). 


LECT. VIII. SACRIFICE 285 
and the kindred god. And the parallelism between the 
two cases is curiously marked in detail by what I may call 
a similarity between the ritual of sacrifice and of the 
execution of a tribesman. In both cases it is required 
that, as far as possible, every member of the kindred 
should be not only a consenting party but a partaker in 
the act, so that whatever responsibility it involves may be 
equally distributed over the whole clan. This is the mean- 
ing of the ancient Hebrew form of execution, where the 
culprit is stoned by the whole congregation. 

The idea that the life of a brute animal may be pro- 
tected by the same kind of religious scruple as the life of 
a fellow-man is one which we have a difficulty in grasping, 
or which at any rate we are apt to regard as more proper 
to a late and sentimental age than to the rude life of 
primitive times. But this difficulty mainly comes from 
our taking up a false point of view. arly man had 
certainly no conception of the sacredness of animal life 
as such, but neither had he any conception of the sacred- 
ness of human life as such. The life of his clansman was 
sacred to him, not because he was a man, but because he 
was a kinsman; and, in like manner, the life of an animal 
of his totem kind is sacred to the savage, not because it is 
animate, but because he and it are sprung from the same 
stock and are cousins to one another. 

It is clear that the scruple of Nilus’s Saracens about 
killing the camel was of this restricted kind; for they had 
no objection to kill and eat game. But the camel they 
would not kill except under the same circumstances as 
make it lawful for many savages to kill their totem, z.. 
under the pressure of hunger or in connection with 
exceptional religious rites.1_ The parallelism between the 
Arabian custom and totemism is therefore complete except 


1 Frazer, T'otemism and Hxogamy, iv. pp. 19 sq., 45. 


286 PROHIBITION OF LECT. VIL 
in one point. There is no direct evidence that the seruple 
against the private slaughter of a camel had its origin in 
feelings of kinship. But, as we have seen, there is this 
indirect evidence, that the consent and participation of 
the clan, which was required to make the slaughter of a 
camel legitimate, is the very thing that is needed to make 
the death of a kinsman legitimate. And direct evidence 
we cannot expect to find, for it is most improbable that 
the Arabs of Nilus’s time retained any clear ideas about 
the original significance of rules inherited by tradition 
from a more primitive state of society. 

The presumption thus created that the regard paid by 
the Saracens for the life of the camel sprang from the 
same principle of kinship between men and certain kinds 
of animals which is the prime factor in totemism, would 
not be worth much if it rested only on an isolated state- 
ment about a particular branch of the Arab race. But it 
is to be observed that the same kind of restriction on the 
private slaughter of animals must have existed in ancient 
times among all the Semites. We have found reason to 
believe that among the early Semites generally no slaughter 
was legitimate except for sacrifice, and we have also found 
reason, apart from Nilus’s evidence, for believing that all 
Semitic sacrifice was originally the act of the community. 
If these two propositions are true, it follows that all the 
Semites at one time protected the lives of animals proper 
for sacrifice, and forbade them to be slain except by the 
act of the clan, that is, except under such circumstances 
as would justify or excuse the death of a kinsman. Now, 
if it thus appears that the scruple against private slaughter 
of an animal proper for sacrifice was no mere individual 
peculiarity of Nilus’s Saracens, but must at an early period 
have extended to all the Semites, it is obvious that the 
conjecture which connects the scruple with a feeling of 


LECT. Viti. PRIVATE SLAUGHTER 287 


kinship between the worshippers and the victim gains 
greatly in plausibility. For the origin of the scruple 
must now be sought in some widespread and very primi- 
tive habit of thought, and it is therefore apposite to point 
out that among primitive peoples there are no binding 
precepts of conduct except those that rest on the principle 
of kinship.t This is the general rule which is found in 
operation wherever we have an opportunity of observing 
rude societies, and that it prevailed among the early 
Semites is not to be doubted. Indeed among the Arabs 
the rule held good without substantial modification down 
to the time of Mohammed. No life and no obligation 
was sacred unless it was brought within the charmed 
circle of the kindred blood. 

Thus the prima face presumption, that the scruple in 
question had to do with the notion that certain animals 
were akin to men, becomes very strong indeed, and can 
hardly be set aside unless those who reject it are prepared 
to show that the idea of kinship between men and beasts, 
as it is found in most primitive nations, was altogether 
foreign to Semitic thought, or at least had no substantial 
place in the ancient religious ideas of that race. But I 
do not propose to throw the burden of proof on the 
antagonist. 

I have already had occasion in another connection to 
shew by a variety of evidences that the earliest Semites, 
like primitive men of other races, drew no sharp line of 
distinction between the nature of gods, of men, and of 
beasts, and had no difficulty in admitting a real kinship 
between (a) gods and men, (0) gods and sacred animals, 
(c) families of men and families of beasts.2 As regards 


1 In religions based on kinship, where the god and his worshippers are 
of one stock, precepts of sanctity are, of course, covered by the principle of 
kinship. 

2 Supra, pp. 41 sqqg. 85 sqq. 


288 THE VICTIM A L¥CT. VIII. 
the third of these points, the direct evidence is fragment- 
ary and sporadic; it is sufficient to prove that the idea of 
kinship between races of men and races of beasts was not 
foreign to the Semites, but it is not sufficient to prove 
that such a belief was widely prevalent, or to justify us 
in taking it as one of the fundamental principles on which 
Semitic ritual was founded. But it must be remembered 
that the three points are so connected that if any two of 
them are established, the third necessarily follows. Now, 
as regards (a), it is not disputed that the kinship of gods 
with their worshippers is a fundamental doctrine of Semitic 
religion; it appears so widely and in so many forms and 
applications, that we cannot look upon it otherwise than 
as one of the first and most universal principles of ancient 
faith. Again, as regards (0), a belief in sacred animals, 
which are treated with the reverence due to divine beings, 
is an essential element in the most widespread and 
important Semitic cults. All the great deities of the 
northern Semites had their sacred animals, and were 
themselves worshipped in animal form, or in association 
with animal symbols, down to a late date; and that this 
association implied a veritable unity of kind between 
animals and gods is placed beyond doubt, on the one hand, 
by the fact that the sacred animals, eg. the doves and 
fish of Atargatis, were reverenced with divine honours ; 
and, on the other hand, by theogonic myths, such as that 
which makes the dove-goddess be born from an egg, and 
transformation myths, such as that of Bambyce, where 
it was believed that the fish-goddess and her son had 
actually been transformed into fish. e 

1 Examples of the evidence on this head have been given above ; a fuller 
account of it will fall to be given in a future course of lectures. Meantime 
the reader may refer to Kinship, chap. vii. I may here, however, add a 


general argument which seems to deserve attention. We have seen (supra, 
p- 142 sgg.) that holiness is not based on the idea of property. Holy 


ee a oe 


LECT. VIIt. SACRED ANIMAL 289 


Now if kinship between the gods and their worshippers, 
on the one hand, and kinship between the gods and certain 
kinds of animals, on the other, are deep-seated principles 
of Semitic religion, manifesting themselves in all parts 
of the sacred institutions of the race, we must necessarily 
conclude that kinship between families of men and animal 
kinds was an idea equally deep-seated, and we shall expect 
to find that sacred animals, wherever they occur, will be 
treated with the regard which men pay to their kinsfolk. 

Indeed in a religion based on kinship, where the god 
and his worshippers are of one stock, the principle of 
sanctity and that of kinship are identical. The sanctity 
of a kinsman’s life and the sanctity of the godhead are not 
two things, but one; for ultimately the only thing that 
is sacred is the common tribal life, or the common blood 
which is identified with the life. Whatever being partakes 
in this life is holy, and its holiness may be described 
indifferently, as participation in the divine life and nature, 
or as participation in the kindred blood. 

Thus the conjecture that sacrificial animals were 
originally treated as kinsmen, is simply equivalent to the 
conjecture that sacrifices were drawn from animals of a 
holy kind, whose lives were ordinarily protected by 
religious scruples and sanctions; and in support of this 
position a great mass of evidence can be adduced, not 
merely for Semitic sacrifice, but for ancient sacrifice 
generally. 

In the later days of heathenism, when animal food 


animals, and holy things generally, are primarily conceived, not as belonging 
to the deity, but as being themselves instinct with divine power or life. 
Thus a holy animal is one which has a divine life; and if it be holy to a 
particular god, the meaning must be that its life and his are somehow bound 
up together. From what is known of primitive ways of thought we may 
infer that this means that the sacred animal is akin to the god, for all valid 
and permanent relation between individuals is conceived as kinship. 


19 


290 MYSTIC LECT. VIIL, 
was commonly eaten, and the rule that all legitimate 
slaughter must be sacrificial was no longer insisted on, 
sacrifices were divided into two classes; ordinary sacrifices, 
where the victims were sheep, oxen or other beasts 
habitually used for food, and extraordinary sacrifices, 
where the victims were animals whose flesh was regarded 
as forbidden meat. The Emperor Julian’ tells us that 
in the cities of the Roman Empire such extraordinary 
sacrifices were celebrated once or twice a year in mystical 
ceremonies, and he gives as an example the sacrifice of 
the dog to Hecate. In this case the victim was the sacred 
animal of the goddess to which it was offered; Hecate is 
represented in mythology as accompanied by demoniac 
dogs, and in her worship she loved to be addressed by 
the name of Dog. Here, therefore, the victim is not 
only a sacred animal, but an animal kindred to the deity 
to which it is sacrificed. The same principle seems to 
lie at the root of all exceptional sacrifices of unclean 
animals, 2.¢. animals that were not ordinarily eaten, for 
we have already seen that the idea of uncleanness and 
holiness meet in the primitive conception of taboo. I 
leave it to classical scholars to follow this out in its 
application to Greek and Roman sacrifice; but as regards 
the Semites it is worth while to establish the point by 
going in detail through the sacrifices of unclean beasts 
that are known to us. 

1. The swine. According to Al-Nadim the heathen 
Harranians sacrificed the swine and ate swine’s flesh 
once a year.2 This ceremony is ancient, for it appears 
in Cyprus in connection with the worship of the Semitic 


Aphrodite and Adonis. In the ordinary worship of 


1 Orat. v. p. 176. 

2 Porph., De Abst. iii. 17, iv. 16. Mr. Bury has suggested that 
etymologically ‘Exéry7= Hund, hound, as éxarov = hundert, hundred. 

3 Fthrist, p. 326, 1. 3 sq. 


LECT. VIII. SACRIFICES 291 


Aphrodite swine were not admitted, but in Cyprus wild 
boars were sacrificed once a year on April 2. The 
same sacrifice is alluded to in the Book of Isaiah as a 
heathen abomination,? with which the prophet associates 
the sacrifice of two other unclean animals, the dog and 
the mouse. We know from Lucian that the swine was 
esteemed sacrosanct by the Syrians,’ and that it was 
specially sacred to Aphrodite or Astarte is affirmed by 
Antiphanes, ap. Athen. i. 49.4 

2. The dog. This sacrifice, as we have seen, is men- 
tioned in the Book of Isaiah, and it seems also to be 
alluded to as a Punic rite in Justin, xviii. 1. 10, where 
we read that Darius sent a message to the Carthaginians 
forbidding them to sacrifice human victims and to eat the 
flesh of dogs: in the connection a religious meal must be 
understood. In this case the accounts do not connect the 
rite with any particular deity to whom the dog was sacred,® 
but we know from Al-Nadim that the dog was sacred 
among the Harranians. They offered sacrificial gifts to 
it, and in certain mysteries dogs were solemnly declared 
to be the brothers of the myste® A hint as to the 
identity of the god to whom the dog was sacred may 
perhaps be got from Jacob of Sarug, who mentions “the 
Lord with the dogs” as one of the deities of Carrhe.’ 
This god again may be compared with the huntsman 


: 1 Lydus, De Mensibus, Bonn ed., p. 80. Exceptional sacrifices of swine 
to Aphrodite also took place at Argos (Athen. iii. 49) and in Pamphylia 

(Strabo, ix. 5. 17), but the Semitic origin of these rites is not so certain as 
in the case of the Cyprian goddess. The sacrifice of a sow is represented on 
the rock sculptures of J’rapta (Renan, Phén. pl. 81; cf. Pietschmann, p. 
219, adso Baudissin, Adonis, p. 145). 

2 Isa. Ixv. 4, Ixvi. 3, 17. 8 Dea Syria, liv. 

4 In a modern Syrian superstition we find that a demoniac swine haunts 
houses where there is a marriageable maiden, ZDPV. vii. 107. 

5 Movers, Phoenizier, i. 104, is quite unsatisfactory. 

® Fihrist, p. 326, 1.27; cf. p. 323, 1.28; p. 324, 1 2. 

7 ZDMG. xxix. 110; cf. vol. xlii. p. 473. 


292 MYSTIC LECT, VI. 


Heracles of the Assyrians mentioned by Tacitus. The 
Tyrian Heracles or Melcarth also appears accompanied 
by a dog in the legend of the invention of the purple 
dye preserved by Pollux (i. 46) and Malalas (p. 32).? 
In Mohammedan tradition a demoniac character is ascribed 
to black dogs, which probably implies that in heathenism 
they had a certain sanctity.? 

3. Fish, or at least certain species of fish, were sacred 
to Atargatis and forbidden food to all the Syrians, her 
worshippers, who believed—as totem peoples do—that if 
they ate the sacred flesh they would be visited by ulcers.‘ 


1 Tacitus, Ann. xii. 18. A huntsman god accompanied by a dog is figured 
on cylinders (Gazette Archéol. 1879, p. 178 sqq.), but Assyriologists seem not 
to be agreed as to his identity. There were probably more divine huntsmen. 
than one. 

2 Whether the Sicilian god Adranus, whose sacred dogs are mentioned 
by Ailian, Nat. An. xi. 20 (confirmed by monumental evidence ; Ganneau, 
Rec. d@ Arch. Or. i. 236), is of Semitic origin is very uncertain. He is 
generally identified with Adar (the Adrammelech of the Bible); see Holm, 
Gesch. Sic. i. 95, 377. But the very existence of an Assyrian god Adar is 
problematical, and the Hadran of Melito (Spice. Syr. p. 25), who is taken by 
others as the Semitic equivalent of Adranus, is a figure equally obscure. 

If the conjecture that the Heracles worshipped by the v0éu in the 
Cynosarges at Athens was really the Phceenician Heracles can be made out, 
the connection of this deity with the dog will receive further confirmation. 
For Cynosarges means ‘“‘the dog’s yard” (Wachsmuth, Athen. i. 461). 
Steph. Byz. s.v. explains the name by a legend that while Diomos was 
sacrificing to Heracles, a white dog snatched the sacrificial pieces and laid 
them down on the spot where the sanctuary afterwards stood. The dog is 
here the sacred messenger who declares the will of the god, like the eagle of 
Zeus in Malalas, p. 199; cf. Steph. Byz. s.v. yearswra:, The sanctity of the 
dog among the Pheenicians seems also to be confirmed by the proper names 


xd, ordyads, and by the existence of a class of sacred ministers called 
‘‘dogs” (CIS. No. 86, cf. Deut. xxiii. 18 [19]). Reinach and G. Hoffmann, 
op. cit. p. 17, are hardly right in thinking of literal dogs; but in any case 
that would only strengthen the argument. 

3 Damiri, ii. 223; Vloten in Vienna Or. Journ. vii. 240. See also the 
legend of the dog-demon of Riam, B. Hish. p. 18. In Moslem countries 
dogs are still regarded with a curious mixture of respect and contempt. 
They are unclean, but it is an act of piety to feed them, and especially to 
give them drink (Moslim, ii. 196, ed. of A. H. 1290); and to kill a dog, as I 
have observed at Jeddah, is an act that excites a good deal of feeling. See 
also ZDPYV, vii. 93. 

* See the evidence collected by Selden, de Diis Syris, Synt. ii. cap. 8. 


LECT. VII. SACRIFICES 293 
Yet Mnaseas (ap. Athen. viii. 37) tells us that fish were 
daily cooked and presented on the table of the goddess, 
being afterwards consumed by the priests; and Assyrian 
cylinders display the fish laid on the altar or presented 
before it, while, in one example, a figure which stands by 
in an attitude of adoration is clothed, or rather disguised, 
in a gigantic fish skin! The meaning of such a disguise 
is well known from many savage rituals; it implies that 
the worshipper presents himself as a fish, @.e. as a being 
kindred to his sacrifice, and doubtless also to the deity to 
which it is consecrated. 

4. The mouse appears as an abominable sacrifice in 
Isa. Ixvi. 17, along with the swine and the “abomination ” 
(ypw). The last word is applied in the Levitical law? to 
creeping vermin generally (yaw= Arab. hanash), a term 
which included the mouse and other such small quadrupeds 
as we also call vermin. All such creatures were unclean in 
an intense degree, and had the power to communicate un- 
cleanness to whatever they touched. So strict a taboo is 
hardly to be explained except by supposing that, like the 
Arabian hanash, they had supernatural and demoniac quali- 
ties. And in fact, in Ezek. viii. 10, we find them as objects 
of superstitious adoration. On what authority Maimonides 
says that the Harranians sacrificed field-mice I do not know,‘ 
but the biblical evidence is sufficient for our purpose. 

5. The horse was sacred to the Sun-god, for 2 Kings 
xxiii. 11 speaks of the horses which the kings of Judah 
had consecrated to this deity—a superstition to which 
Josiah put an end. At Rhodes, where religion is through- 
out of a Semitic type, four horses were cast into the sea 
as a sacrifice at the annual feast of the sun.® The 


1 Menant, Glyptique, ii. 53. 2 Lev. xi. 41. 3 Supra, p. 128. 

+ Ed. Munk, vol. iii. p. 64, or Chwolsohn, Ssabier, ii. 456. 

5 Festus, s.v. ‘‘ October equus” ; cf. Pausanias, iii. 20. 4 (sacrifice of horses 
tu the Sun at Taygetus); Kinship, p. 242 sq. 


294 MYSTIC LECT, VIII. 


winged horse (Pegasus) is a sacred symbol of the Cartha- 
ginians. 

6. The dove, which the Semites would neither eat nor 
touch, was sacrificed by the Romans to Venus;1 and as the 
Roman Venus-worship of later times was largely derived 
from the Phoenician sanctuary of Eryx, where the dove had 
peculiar honour as the companion of Astarte, it is very 
possible that this was a Semitic rite, though I have not 
found any conclusive evidence that it was so. It must 
certainly have been a very rare sacrifice; for the dove 
among the Semites had a quite peculiar sanctity, and 
Al-Nadim says expressly that it was not sacrificed by 
the Harranians.? It was, however, offered by the Hebrews, 
in sacrifices which we shall by and by see reason to regard 
as Closely analogous to mystical rites; and in Juvenal, vi. 
459 sqq., the superstitious matrons of Rome are represented 
as calling in an Armenian or Syrian (Commagenian) 
haruspex to perform the sacrifice of a dove, a chicken, 
a dog, or even a child. In this association an exceptional 
and mystic sacrifice is necessarily implied.* 

The evidence of these examples is unambiguous. When 
an unclean animal is sacrificed it is also a sacred animal. 
If the deity to which it is devoted is named, it is the 
deity which ordinarily protects the sanctity of the victim, 
and, in some cases, the worshippers either in words or by 
symbolic disguise claim kinship with the victim and the 
god. Further, the sacrifice is generally limited to certain 
solemn occasions, usually annual, and so has the character 
of a public celebration. In several cases the worshippers 
partake of the sacred flesh, which at other times it would 

1 Propertius, iv. 5. 62. * Milian, Nat. An. iv. 2. 
® Fihrist, p. 319, 1. 21. 
4Cf. the mpn, CZS. No. 165, 1. 11. Some other sacrifices of wild 


animals, which present analogies to these mystic rites, will be considered in 
Additional Note F, Sacrifices of Sacred Animals. 


LECT. VIII. SACRIFICES 295 
be impious to touch. All this is exactly what we find 
among totem peoples. Here also the sacred animal is 
forbidden food, it is akin to the men who acknowledge 
its sanctity, and if there is a god it is akin to the god. 
And, finally, the totem is sometimes sacrificed at an annual 
feast, with special and solemn ritual. In such cases the 
flesh may be buried or cast into a river, as the horses of 
the sun were cast into the sea but at other times it is 
eaten as a mystic sacrament.2 These points of contact 
with the most primitive superstition cannot be accidental ; 
they show that the mystical sacrifices, as Julian calls 
them, the sacrifices of animals not ordinarily eaten, are not 
the invention of later times, but have preserved with great 
accuracy the features of a sacrificial ritual of extreme 
antiquity. 

To a superficial view the ordinary sacrifices of domestic 
animals, such as were commonly used for food, seem to 
stand on quite another footing; yet we have been led, 
by an independent line of reasoning, based on the 
evidence that all sacrifice was originally the act of the 


1 Bancroft, iii. 168; Frazer, Totem. and Fx0g., i. 44 sq., iv. 230 sq. 

2 'The proof of this has to be put together out of the fragmentary evidence 
which is generally all that we possess on such matters. As regards America 
the most conclusive evidence comes from Mexico, where the gods, though 
eertainly of totem origin, had become anthropomorphic, and the victim, who 
was regarded as the representative of the god, was human. At other times 
paste idols of the god were eaten sacramentally. But that the ruder 
Americans attached a sacramental virtue to the eating of the totem appears 
from what is related of the Bear clan of the Ouataouaks (Lettres édif. et cur. 
vi. 171), who when they kill a bear make him a feast of his own flesh, and 
tell him not to resent being killed; ‘‘tu as de l’esprit, tu vois que nos 
enfants souffrent la faim, ils t’aiment, ils veulent te faire entrer dans leur 
corps, n’est il pas glorieux d’étre mangé par des enfans de Captaine?” The 
bear feast of the Ainos of Japan (fully described by Scheube in Mitth. 
Deutsch. Geselisch. S. und S. O. Asiens, No. 22, p. 44 sq.) is a sacrificial 
feast on the flesh of the bear, which is honoured as divine, and slain 
with many apologies to the gods, on the pretext of necessity. The 
eating of the totem as medicine (Frazer, i. 22) belongs to the same circle 
of ideas. See also infra, p. 314. 


296 SANCTITY LECT, VIL 


clan, to surmise that they also in their origin were 
rare and solemn offerings of victims whose lives were 
ordinarily deemed sacred, because, like the unclean sacred 
animals, they were of the kin of the worshippers and of 
their god.1 

And in point of fact precisely this kind of respect and 
reverence is paid to domestic animals among many pastoral 
peoples in various parts of the globe. They are regarded 
on the one hand as the friends and kinsmen of men, and 
on the other hand as sacred beings of a nature akin to the 
gods; their slaughter is permitted only under exceptional 
circumstances, and in such cases is never used to provide 
a private meal, but necessarily forms the occasion of a 
public feast, if not of a public sacrifice. The clearest case 
is that of Africa. Agatharchides,? describing the Troglodyte 
nomads of East Africa, a primitive pastoral people in the 
polyandrous stage of society, tells us that their whole 
sustenance was derived from their flocks and herds. When 
pasture abounded, after the rainy season, they lived on 
milk mingled with blood (drawn apparently, as in Arabia, 
from the living animal), and in the dry season they had 
recourse to the flesh of aged or weakly beasts. But the © 
butchers were regarded as unclean. Further, “they gave 
the name of parent to no human being, but only to the ox 
and cow, the ram and ewe, from whom they had their 
nourishment.”? Here we have all the features which our 
theory requires: the beasts are sacred and kindred beings, 


1 Strictly speaking the thing is much more than a surmise, even on the 
evidence already before us. But I prefer to understate rather than overstate 
the case in a matter of such complexity. 

? The extracts of Photius and Diodorus are printed together in Fr. Hist. 
Gr. i. 153. The former has some points which the latter omits. See also 
Artemidorus, ap. Strabo, xvi. 4. 17. 

3 This reminds us of the peculiar form of covenant among the Gallas, in 
which a sheep is introduced as the mother of the parties (Lobo in Pinkertou’s 
Collection ; Africa, i, 8). 


LECT. VIII. OF CATTLE 297 


for they are the source of human life and subsistence. 
They are killed only in time of need, and the butchers are 
unclean, which implies that the slaughter was an impious 
act. 

Similar institutions are found among all the purely 
pastoral African peoples, and have persisted with more or 
less modification or attenuation down to our own time.? 
The common food of these races is milk or game;? cattle 
are seldom killed for food, and only on exceptional 
occasions, such as the proclamation of a war, the circum- 
cision of a youth, or a wedding,? or in order to obtain a 
skin for clothing, or because the creature is maimed or old.! 

In such cases the feast is public, as among Nilus’s 
Saracens,’ all blood relations and even all neighbours having 
a right to partake. Further, the herd and its members 
are objects of affectionate and personal regard,® and are 
surrounded by sacred scruples and taboos. Among the 
Caffres the cattle kraal is sacred; women may not enter 


1 For the evidence of the sanctity of cattle among modern rude peoples, I 
am largely indebted to Mr. Frazer. 

2 Sallust, Jugurtha, 89 (Numidians); Alberti, De Kaffers (Amst. 1810), 
p. 37; Lichtenstein, Aetsen, i. 144. Out of a multitude of proofs I cite 
these, as being drawn from the parts of the continent most remote from one 
another. 

8 So among the Caffres (Fleming, Southern Africa, p. 260; Lichtenstein, 
Reisen, i. 442). The Dinkas hardly kill cattle except for a funeral feast 
(Stanley, Darkest Africa, i. 424). 

4 Alberti, p. 163 (Caffres) ; cf. Gen. iii. 21, and Herod. iv. 189. The 
religious significance of the dress of skin, which appears in the last cited 
passage, will occupy us later. 

5So among the Zulus (supra, p. 284, note) and among the Caffres 
(Alberti, wt swpra). 

6 See in particular the general remarks of Munzinger on the pastoral 
peoples of East Africa, Ostafr. Studien (2nd ed., 1883), p. 547: ‘‘ The nomad 
values his cow above all things, and weeps for its death as for that of a 
child.” Again: ‘‘They have an incredible attachment to the old breed of 
cattle, which they have inherited from father and grandfather, and keep a 
record of their descent ’—a trace of the feeling of kinship between the herd 
and the tribe, as in Agatharchides. See also Schweinfurth, Heart of Africa, 
i, 59 (3rd ed., 1878), and compare 2 Sam. xii. 3, 


298 SANCTITY LECT. VIII. 


it, and to defile it is a capital offence* Finally, the 
notion that cattle are the parents of men, which we 
find in Agatharchides, survives in the Zulu myth that 
men, especially great chiefs, “ were belched up by a cow.” 

These instances may suffice to show how universally 
the attitude towards domestic animals, described by 
Agatharchides, is diffused among the pastoral peoples of 
Africa. But I must still notice one peculiar variation 
of the view that the life of cattle is sacred, which occurs 
both in Africa and among the Semites. Herodotus * tells 
us that the Libyans, though they ate oxen, would not touch 
the flesh of the cow. In the circle of ideas which we 
have found to prevail throughout Africa, this distinction 
must be connected, on the one hand, with the prevalence 
of kinship through women, which necessarily made the 
cow more sacred than the ox, and, on the other, with the 
fact that it is the cow that fosters man with her milk. 
The same rule prevailed in Egypt, where the cow was 
sacred to Hathor-Isis, and also among the Pheenicians, 
who both ate and sacrificed bulls, but would as soon have 
eaten human flesh as that of the cow.® 

The importance of this evidence for our enquiry is all 
the greater because there is a growing disposition among 
scholars to recognise an ethnological connection of a 
somewhat close kind between the Semitic and African races. 
But the ideas which I have attempted to unfold are not 


1 Fleming, p. 214. 

2 Lichtenstein, i. 479, who adds that the punishment will not seem severe 
if we consider how holy their cattle are to them, 

$ Lang, Myth, Ritual, ete. i. 179. 

4Bk. iv. chap. 186. 

5 See Porphyry, De Absé. ii. 11, for both nations; and, for the Egyptians, 
Herod. ii. 41. The Phcenician usage can hardly be ascribed to Egyptian 
influence, for at least a preference for male victims is found among the 
Semites generally, even where the deity is a goddess. See what Chwolsohn, 
Ssabier, ii. 77 sqq., adduces in illustration of the statement of the Fihrist, that 
the Harranians sacrificed only male victims, 


ny a= . 
ot ay 


LECT. VIII. OF CATTLE 299 


the property of a single race. How far the ancient 
holiness of cattle, and especially of the cow, among the 
Iranians, presents details analogous to those which have 
come before us, is a question which I must leave to the 
professed students of a very obscure literature; it seems 
at least to be admitted that the thing is not an innovation 
of Zoroastrianism, but common to the Iranians with their 
Indian cousins, so that the origin of the sacred regard 
paid to the cow must be sought in the primitive nomadic 
life of the Indo-European race. But to show that exactly 
such notions as we have found in Africa appear among 
pastoral peoples of quite different race, I will cite the case 
of the Todas of South India. Here the domestic animal, 
the milk-giver and the main source of subsistence, is the 
buffalo. “The buffalo is treated with great kindness, 
even with a degree of adoration,’! and certain cows, the 
descendants from mother to daughter of some remote 
sacred ancestor, are hung with ancient cattle bells and 
invoked as divinities” Further, “there is good reason 
for believing the Todas’ assertion that they have never 
at any time eaten the flesh of the female buffalo,” and 
the male they eat only once a year, when all the adult 
males in the village join in the ceremony of killing and 
eating a young bull calf, which is killed with special 
ceremonies and roasted by a sacred fire. Venison, on the 
other hand, they eat with pleasure.* At a funeral one 
or two buffaloes are killed:* “as each animal falls, men, 


1 Marshall, Travels among the Todas (1873), p. 180. 

2 Ibid. p. 131. 

3 Ibid. p. 81. The sacrifice is eaten only by males. So among the 
Caffres certain holy parts of an ox must not be eaten by women; and in 
Hebrew law the duty of festal worship was confined to males, though women 
were not excluded. Among the Todas men and women habitually eat 
apart, as the Spartans did ; and the Spartan blood-broth may be compared 
with the Toda animal sacrifice. 

* Ibid. p. 176. 


300 SANCTITY LECT. VIII. 
women and children group themselves round its head, 
and fondle, caress, and kiss its face, then sitting in groups 
of pairs ... give way to wailing and lamentation.” These 
victims are not eaten, but left on the ground. 

These examples may suffice to show the wide diffusion 
among rude pastoral peoples of a way of regarding sacred 
animals with which the Semitic facts and the inferences 
I have drawn from them exactly correspond; let us now 
enquire how far similar ideas can be shown to have 
prevailed among the higher races of antiquity. In this 
connection I would first of all direct your attention to 
the wide prevalence among all these nations of a belief 
that the habit of slaughtering animals and eating flesh 
is a departure from the laws of primitive piety. Except 
in certain ascetic circles, priestly or philosophical, this 
opinion bore no practical fruit; men ate flesh freely 
when they could obtain it, but in their legends of the 
Golden Age it was told how in the earliest and happiest 
days of the race, when man was at peace with the gods 
and with nature, and the hard struggle of daily toil had 
not begun, animal food was unknown, and all man’s wants 
were supplied by the spontaneous produce of the bounteous 
earth. This, of course, is not true, for even on anatomical 
grounds it is certain that our remote ancestors were carni- 
vorous, and it is matter of observation that primitive 
nations do not eschew the use of animal food in general, 
though certain kinds of flesh are forbidden on grounds 
of piety. But, on the other hand, the idea of the Golden 
Age cannot be a mere abstract speculation without any 
basis in tradition. The legend in which it is embodied 
is part of the ancient folk-lore of the Greeks, and the 
practical application of the idea in the form of a 


1 Hesiod, Works and Days, 109 sqq. Cf. Preller-Robert, I. i. p. 87 sqq., 
for the other literature of the subject. 


LECT. VIII. OF CATTLE 301 


precept of abstinence from flesh, as a rule of perfection 
or of ceremonial holiness, is first found, not among in- 
novating and speculative philosophers, but in priestly 
circles, e.g. in Egypt and India—whose lore is entirely 
based on tradition, or in such philosophic schools as 
that of Pythagoras, all whose ideas are characterised by 
an extraordinary regard for ancient usage and superstition. 

In the case of the Egyptian priests the facts set forth 
by Porphyry in his book De Abstinentia, iv. 6 sqq., on the 
authority of Cheremon,! enable us to make out distinctly the 
connection between the abstinence imposed on the priests 
and the primitive beliefs and practice of the mass of the 
people. 

From ancient times every Egyptian had, according to 
the nome he lived in, his own particular kind of forbidden 
flesh, venerating a particular species of sacred animal, 
exactly as totemistic savages still do. The priests 
extended this precept, being in fact the ministers of a 
national religion, which gathered into one system the 
worships of the various nomes; but only some of them 
went so far as to eat no flesh at all, while others, who 
were attached to particular cults, ordinarily observed 
abstinence only from certain kinds of flesh, though 
they were obliged to confine themselves to a strictly 
vegetable diet at certain religious seasons, when they were 
specially engaged in holy functions. It is, however, 
obvious that the multitude of local prohibitions could not 
have resulted in a general doctrine of the superior piety of 
vegetarianism, unless the list of animals which were sacred 
in one or other part of the country had included those 
domestic animals which in a highly cultivated country like 
Egypt must always form the chief source of animal food. 


1 The authority is good ; see Bernays, Zheophrastos’ Schrift Ueber Frim- 
migkett (Breslau, 1866), p. 21, 


802 SANCTITY LECT, VIII. 


In Egypt this was the case, and indeed the greatest and 
most widely recognised deities were those that had associa- 
tions with domesticated animals. In this respect Egyptian 
civilisation declares its affinity to the primitive usages 
and superstitions of the pastoral populations of Africa 
generally; the Calf-god Apis, who was supposed to be 
incarnate in an actual calf at Memphis, and the Cow- 
goddess Isis-Hathor, who is either represented in the form 
of a cow, or at least wears a cow’s horns, directly connect 
the dominant cults of Egypt with the sanctity ascribed to 
the bovine species by the ruder races of Eastern Africa, 
with whom the ox is the most important domestic animal ; 
and it is not therefore surprising to learn that even in later 
times the eating of cow’s flesh seemed to the Egyptians 
a practice as horrible as cannibalism. Cows were never 
sacrificed ; and though bulls were offered on the altar, and 
part of the flesh eaten in a sacrificial feast, the sacrifice 
was only permitted as a piaculum, was preceded by a 
solemn fast, and was accompanied by public lamentation 
as at the death of a kinsman.! In like manner, at the 
annual sacrifice at Thebes to the Ram-god Amen, the 
worshippers bewailed the victim, thus declaring its kin- 
ship with themselves ; while, on the other hand, its kinship 
or identity with the god was expressed in a twofold way, 
for the image of Amen was draped in the skin of the 
sacrifice, while the body was buried in a sacred coffin.? 

In Egypt, the doctrine that the highest degree of holi- 
ness can only be attained by abstinence from all animal 
food, was the result of the political fusion of a number of 
local cults in one national religion, with a national priest- 
hood that represented imperial ideas. Nothing of this sort 
took place in Greece or in most of the Semitic lands,? and 


1 Herod. ii. 39 sq. ® Herod. ii, 42. 
® Babylonia is perhaps an exception. 


2h 


LECT. VIII. OF CATTLE 303 


in these accordingly we find no developed doctrine of 
priestly asceticism in the matter of food. 

Among the Greeks and Semites, therefore, the idea of 
a Golden Age, and the trait that in that age man was 
vegetarian in his diet, must be of popular not of priestly 
origin. Now in itself the notion that ancient times were 
better than modern, that the earth was more productive, 
men more pious and their lives less vexed with toil and 
sickness, needs no special explanation; it is the natural 
result of psychological laws which apply equally to the 
memory of individuals and the memory of nations. But 
the particular trait of primitive vegetarianism, as a 
characteristic feature of the good old times, does not fall 
under this general explanation, and can only have arisen 
at a time when there was still some active feeling of 
pious scruple about killing and eating flesh. This scruple 
cannot have applied to all kinds of flesh, eg. to game, but 
it must have covered the very kinds of flesh that were 
ordinarily eaten in the agricultural stage of society, to 
which the origin of the legend of the Golden Age un- 
doubtedly belongs. Flesh, therefore, in the legend means 
the flesh of domestic animals, and the legend expresses 
a feeling of respect for the lives of these animals, and an 
idea that their slaughter for food was an innovation not 
consistent with pristine piety. 

When we look into the details of the traditions which 
later writers cite in support of the doctrine of primeval 
vegetarianism, we see that in effect this, and no more than 


1 On the supposed case of the Essenes see Lucius’s books on the Essenes 
and Therapeute, and Schiirer, Gesch. des Jiid. Volkes, ti.4 679. The Thera- 
peute, whether Jews or Christian monks, appear in Egypt, and most 
probably they were Egyptian Christians. Later developments of Semitic 
asceticism almost certainly stood under foreign influences, among which 
Buddhism seems to have had a larger and earlier share than it has been 
usual to admit. In old Semitic practice, as among the modern Jews and Mos- 
lems, religious fasting meant abstinence from all food, not merely from flesh. 


304 THE BUPHONIA LECT. VIN. 


this, is contained in them. The general statement that 
early man respected all animal life is mere inference, but 
popular tradition and ancient ritual alike bore testimony 
that the life of the swine and the sheep,' but above all of 
the ox,? was of old regarded as sacred, and might not be 
taken away except for religious purposes, and even then 
only with special precautions to clear the worshippers from 
the guilt of murder. 

To make this quite plain, it may be well to go in some 
detail into the most important case of all, that of the ox. 
That it was once a capital offence to kill an ox, both in 
Attica and in the Peloponnesus, is attested by Varro.2 So 
far as Athens is concerned, this statement seems to be 
drawn from the legend that was told in connection with 
the annual sacrifice of the Dipolia, where the victim was a 
bull, and its death was followed by a solemn enquiry as to 
who was responsible for the act. In this trial every one 
who had anything to do with the slaughter was called as a 
party : the maidens who drew water to sharpen the axe 
and knife threw the blame on the sharpeners, they put 
it on the man who handed the axe, he on the man who 
struck down the victim, and he again on the one who cut 
its throat, who finally fixed the responsibility on the knife, 
which was accordingly found guilty of murder and cast 
into the sea. According to the legend, this act was a mere 
dramatic imitation of a piacular sacrifice devised to expiate 
the offence of one Sopatros, who killed an ox that he saw 
eating the cereal gifts from the table of the gods. This 
impious offence was followed by famine, but the oracle 


1 Porph., De Abst. ii. 9. 

2 Ibid. li. 10, 29 sq.; Plato, Leges, vi. p. 782; Pausanias, viii. 2. 1 sqq. 
compared with i. 28. 10 (bloodless sacrifices under Cecrops, sacrifice of an 
ox in the time of Erechtheus), 

oF. Ae te 

‘ Pausanias, i, 24. 4; Theophrastus, ap, Porph., De Abst. ii. 30, 


LECT. VIII. AT ATHENS 305 


declared that the guilt might be expiated if the slayer 
were punished and the victim raised up again in connection 
with the same sacrifice in which it died, and that it would 
then go well with them if they tasted of the flesh and did 
not hold back. Sopatros himself, who had fled to Crete, 
undertook to return and devise a means of carrying out 
these injunctions, provided that the whole city would share 
the responsibility of the murder that weighed on his 
conscience ; and so the ceremonial was devised, which con- 
tinued to be observed down to a late date.1 Of course the 
legend as such has no value; it is derived from the ritual, 
and not vice versd; but the ritual itself shows clearly that 
the slaughter was viewed as a murder, and that it was felt 
to be necessary, not only to go through the form of throw- 
ing the guilt on the knife, but to distribute the responsibility 
as widely as possible, by employing a number of sacrificial 
ministers—who, it may be observed, were chosen from 
different kindreds—and making it a public duty to taste 
of the flesh. Here, therefore, we have a well-marked case 
of the principle that sacrifice is not to be excused except 
by the participation of the whole community.? This rite 
does not stand alone. At Tenedos the priest who offered 
a bull-calf to Dionysus av@pwroppaiorns was attacked 
with stones and had to flee for his life;* and at Corinth, in 
the annual sacrifice of a goat to Hera Acrea, care was 
taken to shift the responsibility of the death off the 
shoulders of the community by employing hirelings as 


1 Aristophanes alludes to it as a very old-world rite (Nwbes, 985), but the 
observance was still kept up in the days of Theophrastus in all its old 
quaintness. In Pausanias’s time it had undergone some simplification, 
unless his account is inaccurate. 

* The further feature that the ox chooses itself as victim, by approaching 
the altar and eating the gifts laid on it, is noticeable, both because a similar 
rite recurs at Eryx, as will be mentioned presently, and because in this way 
the victim eats of the table of the gods, 7.e. is acknowledged as divine. 

3 Alian, Nat. An. xii. 34. 

20 


306 THE SEMITIC LECT. VIII 
ministers. Even they did no more than hide the knife in 
such a way that the goat, scraping with its feet, procured 
its own death. But indeed the idea that the slaughter 
of a bull was properly a murder, and only to be justified 
on exceptional sacrificial occasions, must once have been 
general in Greece; for Bovdovia (Bovdoveiv, Bovdovos) or 
“ox-murder,’ which in Athens was the name of the 
peculiar sacrifice of the Diipolia, is in older Greek a 
general term for the slaughter of oxen for a sacrificial feast.? 
And that the “ox-murder” must be taken quite literally 
appears in the sacrifice at Tenedos, where the bull-calf 
wears the cothurnus and its dam is treated like a woman 
in childbed. Here the kinship of the victim with man is 
clearly expressed, but so also is his kinship with the 
“man-slaying” god to whom the sacrifice is offered, for 
the cothurnus is proper to Bacchus, and that god was often 
represented and invoked as a bull.? 

The same combination of ideas appears in the Hebrew 
and Pheenician traditions of primitive abstinence from flesh 
and of the origin of sacrifice. The evidence in this case 
requires to be handled with some caution, for the Phe- 
nician traditions come to us from late authors, who are 
gravely suspected of tampering with the legends they 
record, and the Hebrew records in the Book of Genesis, 
though they are undoubtedly based on ancient popular 
lore, have been recast under the influence of a higher faith, 
and purged of such elements as were manifestly inconsistent 


1 Hesychius, 8.v. ai% aia; Zenobius on the same proverb; Schol. on Eurip., 
Medea. 

2 See Jdiad, vii. 466; the Homeric hymn to Mercury, 436, ina story which 
seems to be one of the many legends about the origin of sacrifice; Aisch., 
Prom. 530, 

8 See especially Plutarch, Qu. Gr. 36. Another example to the same 
effect is that of the goat dressed up as a maiden, which was offered to 
Artemis Munychia (Paremiogr. Gr, i. 402, and Eustathius as there cited by 
the editors), 


LECT, VIII. GOLDEN AGE 307 


with Old Testament monotheism. As regards the Hebrew 
accounts, a distinction must be drawn between the earlier 
Jahvistic story and the post-exile narrative of the priestly 
historian. In the older account, just as in the Greek fable 
of the Golden Age, man, in his pristine state of innocence, 
lived at peace with all animals, eating the spontaneous 
fruits of the earth; but after the Fall he was sentenced 
to earn his bread by agricultural toil. At the same time 
his war with hurtful creatures (the serpent) began, and 
domestic animals began to be slain sacrificially, and their 
skins used for clothing.” In the priestly history, on the 
other hand, man’s dominion over animals, and seemingly 
also the agricultural life, in which animals serve man in 
the work of tillage, are instituted at the creation.2 In this 
narrative there is no Garden of Eden, and no Fall, except 
the growing corruption that precedes the Flood. After the 
Flood man receives the right to kill and eat animals, if 
their blood is poured upon the ground,‘ but sacrifice begins 
only with the Mosaic dispensation. Now, as sacrifice and 
slaughter were never separated, in the case of domestic 
animals, till the time of Deuteronomy, this form of the 
story cannot be ancient ; it rests on the post-Deuteronomic 
law of sacrifice, and especially on Lev. xvi. 10 sg. The 
original Hebrew tradition is that of the Jahvistic story, 
which agrees with Greek legend in connecting the sacrifice 
of domestic animals with a fall from the state of pristine 
innocence.® ‘This, of course, is not the main feature in the 


1 Of. Isa. xi. 6 sq. 

2 Gen. ii. 16 sgq., iii. 15, 21, iv. 4. I am disposed to agree with Budde 
(Bibl. Urgeschichte, p. 83), that the words of ii. 15, ‘‘ to dress it and to keep 
it,” are by a later hand. ‘They agree with Gen. i. 26 sqq. (priestly), but not 
with iii, 17 (Jahvistic), 

3 Gen. i. 28, 29, where the use of corn as well as of the fruit of trees is 
implied. 

4 Gen. ix. 1 sq. 

5 The Greek legend in the Works and Days agrees with the Jahvistic 


308 PH@NICIAN LECT. vim 


biblical story of the Fall, nor is it one on which the narrator 
lays stress, or to which he seems to attach any special 
significance. But for that very reason it is to be presumed 
that this feature in the story is primitive, and that it must 
be explained, like the corresponding Greek legend, not by 
the aid of principles peculiar to the Old Testament revela- 
tion, but by considerations of a more general kind. There 
are other features in the story of the Garden of Eden— 
especially the tree of life—which prove that the original 
basis of the narrative is derived from the common stock of 
North Semitic folk-lore ; and that this common stock in- 
cluded the idea of primitive vegetarianism is confirmed by 
Philo Byblius,! whose legend of the primitive men, who 
lived only on the fruits of the soil and paid divine honour 
to these, has too peculiar a form to be regarded as a mere 
transcript either from the Bible or from Greek literature. 
It is highly improbable that among the ancient Semites 
the story of a Golden Age of primitive fruit-eating can have 
had its rise in any other class of ideas than those which 
led to the formation of a precisely similar legend in Greece. 
The Greeks concluded that primitive man did not eat the 
flesh of domestic animals, because their sacrificial ritual 
regarded the death of a victim as a kind of murder, only to 
be justified under special circumstances, and when it was 
accompanied by special precautions, for which a definite 
historical origin was assigned. And just in the same way 
the Cypro-Phcenician legend which Porphyry? quotes from 
Asclepiades, to prove that the early Phoenicians did not eat 


story also in ascribing the Fall to the fault of a woman. But this trait does 
not seem to appear in all forms of the Greek story (see Preller-Robert, i. 94 
sq.), and the estrangement between gods and men is sometimes ascribed to 
Prometheus, who is also regarded as the inventor of fire and of anima] 
sacrifice. 

1 Ap. Eus., Pr. Ev. i, 106 (Fr. Hist. Gr. iii. 565). 

2 De Abst. iv. 15. 


LECT, VIII. SACRIFICES 309 


flesh, turns on the idea that the death of a victim was 
originally a surrogate for human sacrifice, and that the 
first man who dared to taste flesh was punished with death. 
The details of this story, which exactly agree with Lamb’s 
humorous account of the discovery of the merits of roast 
sucking pig, are puerile and cannot be regarded as part of 
an ancient tradition, but the main idea does not seem to 
be mere invention. We have already seen that the Phoeni- 
clans would no more eat cow-beef than human flesh; it 
can hardly, therefore, be questioned that in ancient times 
the whole bovine race had such a measure of sanctity as 
would give even to the sacrifice of a bull the very character 
that our theory requires. And when Asclepiades states 
that every victim was originally regarded as a surrogate 
for a human sacrifice, he is confirmed in a remarkable way 
by the Elohistic account of the origin of burnt-sacrifice in 
Gen. xxii., where a ram is accepted in lieu of Isaac. This 
narrative presents another remarkable point of contact 
with Pheenician belief. Abraham says that God Himself 
will provide the sacrifice (ver. 8), and at ver. 13 the ram 
presents itself unsought as an offering. Exactly this prin- 
ciple was observed down to late times at the great Astarte 
temple at Eryx, where the victims were drawn from the 
sacred herds nourished at the sanctuary, and were believed 
to offer themselves spontaneously at the altar This is 
quite analogous to the usage at the Diipolia, where a 
number of cattle were driven round the sacred table, and 
the bull was selected for slaughter that approached it and ate 
of the sacred popana, and must be regarded as one of the 
many forms and fictions adopted to free the worshippers 


1 Milian, Nat. An. x. 50; cf. Isa. liii. 7; Jer. xi. 19 (R.V.) ; but especi- 
ally 1 Sam. vi. 14, where the kine halt at the sacrificial stone (Diog. Laert. i. 
10. 3); also Ibn Hisham, p. 293, 1.14. That the victim presents itself 
spontaneously or comes to the altar willingly is a feature in many worships 
(Mir. Ausc. 137; Porph., De Abst. i. 25). 


310 COW-ASTARTE LECT, VIII 


of responsibility for the death of the victim. All this 
goes to show that the animal sacrifices of the Phoenicians 
were regarded as quasi-human. But that the sacrificial 
kinds were also viewed as kindred to the gods may be con- 
cluded from the way in which the gods were represented. 
The idolatrous Israelites worshipped Jehovah under the 
form of a steer, and the second commandment implies that 
idols were made in the shape of many animals. So too 
the bull of Europa, Zeus Asterius, is, as his epithet implies, 
the male counterpart of Astarte, with whom Europa was 
identified at Sidon Astarte herself was figured crowned 
with a bull’s head,? and the place name Ashteroth Karnaim ? 
is probably derived from the sanctuary of a horned Astarte. 
It may indeed be questioned whether this last is identical 
with the cow-Astarte of Sidon, or is rather a sheep- 
goddess; for in Deut. vii. 13 the produce of the fiock 
is called the “ Ashtaroth of the sheep”—an antique 
expression that must have a religious origin. This sheep- 
Aphrodite was specially worshipped in Cyprus, where 
her annual mystic or piacular sacrifice was a sheep, 
and was presented by worshippers clad in sheepskins, thus 
declaring their kinship at once with the victim and with 
the deity.* 

It is well to observe that in the most ancient nomadic 


1 De Dea Syria, iv.; Kinship, p. 308. 

2 Philo Byb., fr. 24 (Fr. Hist. Gr. iii. 569). 

3 Gen. xiv. 5. Kuenen, in his paper on De Melecheth des Hemels, p. 37, 
thinks it possible that the true reading is ‘‘ Ashteroth and Karnaim.” 
But the identity of the later Carnain or Carnion with Ashtaroth or WAAwya, 
‘‘the temple of Astarte” (Josh. xxi. 27), is confirmed by the fact that there 
was a rémeves or sacred enclosure there (1 Macc, v. 43). See further ZDMG. 
xxix. 431, note 1. The ancient sanctity of the Astarte-shrine has been 
transferred to the sepulchre of Job; cf. S. Silvie Peregrinatio (Rome, 1887), 
56 sqqg. A Punic Baal-Carnaim has lately been discovered in the sanctuary 
of Saturnus Balcaranensis on Jebel Bi Curnein near Tunis, This, however, 
may probably be a local designation derived from the ancient name of the 
double-topped mountain (Mélanges d’ Archéol. etc., Rome, 1892, p. 1 sq.). 

* See Additional NoteG, The Sacrifice of a Sheep to the Cyprian Aphrodite, 


J 
ecu rh 
Se ee a! 


LECT. VIII. AND SHEEP-ASTARTE 311 


times, to which the sanctity of domestic animals must be 
referred, the same clan or community will not generally 
be found to breed more than one kind of domestic animal. 
Thus in Arabia, though the lines of separation are not 
so sharp as we must suppose them to have formerly 
been, there is still a broad distinction between the 
camel - breeding tribes of the upland plains and the 
shepherd tribes of the mountains; and in like manner 
sheep and goats are the flocks appropriate to the steppes 
of Eastern Palestine, while kine and oxen are more 
suitable for the well-watered Phcenician mountains, Thus 
in the one place we may expect to find a sheep-Astarte, 
and in another a cow-goddess, and the Hebrew idiom 
in Deut. vii. 13 agrees with the fact that before the 
conquest of agricultural Palestine, the Hebrews, like their 
kinsmen of Moab, must have been mainly shepherds, not 
cowherds.' 

I have now, I think, said enough about the sanctity of 
domestic animals; the application to the doctrine of sacri- 
fice must be left for another lecture. 


1 The great ancestress of the house of Joseph is Rachel, ‘‘the ewe.” For * 
the Moabites see 2 Kings iii. 4. 


LECTURE 1x 


THE SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY OF ANIMAL SACRIFICE, AND 
COGNATE ACTS OF RITUAL— THE BLOOD COVENANT 
— BLOOD AND HAIR OFFERINGS 


In the course of the last lecture we were led to look with 
some exactness into the distinction drawn in the later ages 
of ancient paganism between ordinary sacrifices, where the 
victim is one of the animals commonly used for human 
food, and extraordinary or mystical sacrifices, where the 
significance of the rite lies in an exceptional act of com- 
munion with the godhead, by participation in holy flesh 
which is ordinarily forbidden to man. Analysing this dis- 
tinction, and carrying back our examination of the evidence 
to the primitive stage of society in which sacrificial ritual 
first took shape, we were led to conclude that in the most 
ancient times all sacrificial animals had a sacrosanct char- 
acter, and that no kind of beast was offered to the gods 
which was not too holy to be slain and eaten without a 
religious purpose, and without the consent and active par- 
ticipation of the whole clan. 

For the most primitive times, therefore, the distinction 
drawn by later paganism between ordinary and extyra- 
ordinary sacrifices disappears. In both cases the sacred 
function is the act of the whole community, which is 
conceived as a circle of brethren, united with one another 
and with their god by participation in one life or life-blood. 
The same blood is supposed to flow also in the veins of the 

812 


S.. 


LECT, IX. THE BLOOD BOND 313 


victim, so that its death is at once a shedding of the tribal 
blood and a violation of the sanctity of the divine life that 
is transfused through every member, human or irrational, 
of the sacred circle. Nevertheless the slaughter of such 
a victim is permitted or required on solemn occasions, and 
all the tribesmen partake of its fiesh, that they may 
thereby cement and seal their mystic unity with one 
another and with their god. In later times we find the 
conception current that any food which two men partake 
of together, so that the same substance enters into their 
flesh and blood, is enough to establish some sacred unity 
of life between them; but in ancient times this significance 
seems to be always attached to participation in the flesh of 
a sacrosanct victim, and the solemn mystery of its death 
is justified by the consideration that only in this way can 
the sacred cement be procured which creates or keeps alive 
a living bond of union between the worshippers and their 
god. This cement is nothing else than the actual life of 
the sacred and kindred animal, which is conceived as 
residing in its flesh, but especially in its blood, and so, in 
the sacred meal, is actually distributed among all the 
participants, each of whom incorporates a particle of it 
with his own individual life. 

The notion that, by eating the flesh, or particularly by 
drinking the blood, of another living being, a man absorbs 
its nature or life into his own, is one which appears 
among primitive peoples in many forms. It lies at the 
root of the widespread practice of drinking the fresh blood 
of enemies—-a practice which was familiar to certain 
tribes of the Arabs before Mohammed, and which tradition 
still ascribes to the wild race of Cahtan 1—and also of the 


1 See the evidence in Kinship, p. 296; and cf. Doughty, ii. 41, where 
the better accounts seem to limit the drinking of human blood by the 
Cahtan to the blood covenant. See Wellh. 125, n. 6. 


314 THE BLOOD LECT, IX. 
habit observed by many savage huntsmen of eating some 
part (eg. the liver) of dangerous carnivora, in order 
that the courage of the animal may pass into them. 
And in some parts of the world, where men have the 
privilege of choosing a special kind of sacred animal 
either in lieu of, or in addition to, the clan totem, 
we find that the compact between the man and the 
species that he is thenceforth to regard as sacred is 
sealed by killing and eating an animal of the species, 
which from that time forth becomes forbidden food to 
him,? 

But the most notable application of the idea is in the 
rite of blood brotherhood, examples of which are found all 
over the world.? In the simplest form of this rite, two 
men become brothers by opening their veins and sucking 
one another’s blood. Thenceforth their lives are not two 
but one. This form of covenant is still known in the 
Lebanon® and in some parts of Arabia. In ancient 
Arabic literature there are many references to the blood 
covenant, but instead of human blood that of a victim slain 
at the sanctuary is employed. The ritual in this case is 
that all who share in the compact must dip their hands 
into the gore, which at the same time is applied to the 
sacred stone that symbolises the deity, or is poured forth 
at its base. The dipping of the hands into the dish 


1 Frazer (Totemism and Exogamy, i. 44 8g.) has collected some evidence 
of the killing, but not of the eating. For the latter he refers me to Cruick- 
shank, Gold Coast (1853), p. 133 sq. 

2 See the collection of evidence in Trumbull, The Blood Covenant (New 
York, 1885) ; and compare, for the Arabs, Kinship, pp. 57 sqq., 59 n. ; 
Wellhausen, p. 125 sqq.; Goldziher, Literaturbl. f. or. Phil. 1886, p. 24, 
Muh. Stud. p. 67. In what follows I do not quote examples in detail for 
things sufficiently exemplified in the books just cited. 

3 Trumbull, p. 5 sq. 

4 Doughty, ii. 41. The value of the evidence is quite independent of 
the accuracy of the statement that the Cahtan still practise the rite; at 
least the tradition of such a rite subsists. See also Trumbull, p. 9. 


LECT. IX. COVENANT 315 


implies communion in an act of eating) and so the * 
members of the bond are called “blood-lickers.” There 
seems to be no example in the old histories and poems of 
a covenant in which the parties lick one another’s blood. 
But we have seen that even in modern times the use of 
human blood in covenants is not unknown to the Semites, 
and the same thing appears for very early times from 
Herodotus’s account of the form of covenant used by the 
Arabs on the borders of Egypt.? Blood was drawn with 
a sharp stone from the thumbs of each party, and smeared 
on seven sacred stones with invocations of the gods. The 
smearing makes the gods parties to the covenant, but 
evidently the symbolical act is not complete unless at the 
same time the human parties taste each other’s blood. It 
is probable that this was actually done, though Herodotus 
does not say so. But it is also possible that in course of 
time the ritual had been so far modified that it was deemed 
sufficient that the two bloods should meet on the sacred 
stone? The rite described by Herodotus has for its object 
the admission of an individual stranger * to fellowship with 
an Arab clansman and his kin; the compact is primarily 
between two individuals, but the obligation contracted by 
the single clansman is binding on all his “ friends,” we. 
on the other members of the kin. The reason why it is so 
binding is that he who has drunk a clansman’s blood is no 
longer a stranger but a brother, and included in the mystic 
circle of those who have a share in the life-blood that is 
common to all the clan. Primarily the covenant is not a 


1 Matt. xxvi. 23. 2 Herod. iii. 8. 

3 Some further remarks on the various modifications of covenant cere- 
monies among the Semites will be found in Additional Note H. 

4 The ceremony might also take place between an Arab and his ‘‘ towns- 
man” (éc7rs), which, I apprehend, must mean another Arab, but one of a 
different clan. For if a special contract between two clansmen were meant, 
there would be no meaning in the introduction to the ‘‘friends”’ who agree 
to share the covenant obligation. 


316 THE BLOOD LECT. 1X, 
special engagement to this or that particular effect, but a 
bond of troth and life-fellowship to all the effects for which 
kinsmen are permanently bound together. And this being 
so, it is a matter of course that the engagement has a 
religious side as well as a social, for there can be no 
brotherhood without community of sacra, and the sanction 
of brotherhood is the jealousy of the tribal deity, who 


sedulously protects the holiness of kindred blood. This 


thought is expressed symbolically by the smearing of the 
two bloods, which have now become one, upon the sacred 
stones, which is as much as to say that the god himself is 
a third blood-licker, and a member of the bond of brother- 
hood. It is transparent that in ancient times the deity 
so brought into the compact must have been the kindred 
god of the clan to which the stranger was admitted; but 
even in the days of Herodotus the old clan religion had 
already been in great measure broken down; all the Arabs 
of the Egyptian frontier, whatever their clan, worshipped 
the same pair of deities, Orotal and Alilat (Al-Lat), and 
these were the gods invoked in the covenant ceremony. 
If, therefore, both the contracting parties were Arabs, of 
different clans but of the same religion, neither could feel 
that the covenant introduced him to the sacra of a new 
god, and the meaning of the ceremony would simply be 
that the gods whom both adored took the compact under 
their protection. This is the ordinary sense of covenant 
with sacrifice in later times, ¢g. among the Hebrews, but 
also among the Arabs, where the deity invoked is ordinarily 
Allah at the Caaba or some other great deity of more 
than tribal consideration. But that the appeal to a god 
already acknowledged by both parties is a departure from 


1 Compare the blood covenant which a Mosquito Indian used to form with 
the animal kind he chose as his protectors; Bancroft, i. 740 sq. (Frazer, 
Totemism and Exogamy, i. 50). 


LECT. IX. COVENANT 317 


the original sense of the rite, is apparent from the appli- 
cation of the blood, not only to the human contractors, but 
to the altar or sacred stone, which continued to be an in- 
variable feature in covenant sacrifice; for this part of the 
rite has its full and natural meaning only in a ceremony 
of initiation, where the new tribesman has to be introduced 
to the god for the first time and brought into life-fellowship 
with him, or else in a periodical clan sacrifice held for the 
purpose of refreshing and renewing a bond between the 
tribesmen and their god, which by lapse of time may seem 
to have been worn out. 

In Herodotus the blood of the covenant is that of the 
human parties; in the cases known from Arabic literature 
it is the blood of an animal sacrifice. At first sight this 
seems to imply a progress in refinement and an aversion 
to taste human blood. bBut it may well be doubted 
whether such an assumption is justified by the social 
history of the Arabs,’ and we have already seen that the 
primitive form of the blood covenant has survived into 
modern times. Rather, I think, we ought to consider that 
the ceremony described by Herodotus is a covenant between 
individuals, without that direct participation of the whole 
kin, which, even in the time of Nilus, many centuries later, 
was essential in those parts of Arabia to an act of sacrifice 
involving the death of a victim. The covenants made by 
sacrifice are generally if not always compacts between 
whole kins, so that here sacrifice was appropriate, while at 
the same time a larger supply of blood was necessary than 
could well be obtained without slaughter. That the blood 
of an animal was accepted in lieu of the tribesmen’s own 
blood, is generally passed over by modern writers without 
explanation. But an explanation is certainly required, 


1 See the examples of cannibalism and the drinking of human blood 
cited in Kinship, p. 296 sq. 


318 COVENANT LECT. IX. 


and is fully supplied only by the consideration that, the 
victim being itself included in the sacred circle of the kin, 
whose life was to be communicated to the new-comers, its 
blood served quite the same purpose as man’s blood. On 
this view the rationale of covenant sacrifice is perfectly clear. 

I do not, however, believe that the origin of sacrifice 
can possibly be sought in the covenant between whole 
kins—a kind of compact which in the nature of things 
cannot have become common till the tribal system was 
weak, and which in primitive times was probably un- 
known. Even the adoption of individuals into a new 
clan, so that they renounced their old kin and sacra, is 
held by the most exact students of early legal custom to 
be, comparatively speaking, a modern innovation on the 
rigid rules of the ancient blood-fellowship; much more, 
then, must this be true of the adoption or fusion of whole 
zlans. I apprehend, therefore, that the use of blood drawn 
from a living man for the initiation of an individual into 
new sacra, and the use of the blood of a victim for the 
similar initiation of a whole clan, must both rest in the 
last resort on practices that were originally observed 
within the bosom of a single kin. 

To such sacrifice the idea of a covenant, whether be- 
tween the worshippers mutually or between the worshippers 
and their god, is not applicable, for a covenant means 
artificial brotherhood, and has no place where the natural 
brotherhood of which it is an imitation already subsists. 
The Hebrews, indeed, who had risen above the conception 
that the relation between Jehovah and Israel was that 
of natural kinship, thought of the national religion as 
constituted by a formal covenant-sacrifice at Mount Sinai, 
where the blood of the victims was applied to the altar 
on the one hand, and to the people on the other,! or even 


1 Ex, xxiv. 4 sqq. 


LECT. IX, SACRIFICE 319 


by a still earlier covenant rite in which the parties were 
Jehovah and Abraham.’ And by a further development 
of the same idea, every sacrifice is regarded in Ps. l. 5 
as a covenant between God and the worshipper.2 But in 
purely natural religions, where the god and his community 
are looked upon as forming a physical unity, the idea that 
religion rests on a compact is out of place, and acts of 
religious communion can only be directed to quicken and 
confirm the life-bond that already subsists between the 
parties. Some provision of this sort may well seem to be 
necessary where kinship is conceived in the very realistic 
way of which we have had so many illustrations. Physical 
unity of life, regarded as an actual participation in one 
common mass of flesh and blood, is obviously subject to 
modification by every accident that affects the physical 
system, and especially by anything that concerns the 
nourishment of the body and the blood. On this ground 
alone it might well seem reasonable to reinforce the sacred 
life from time to time by a physical process. And this 
merely material line of thought naturally combines itself 
with considerations of another kind, which contain the 
germ of an ethical idea. If the physical oneness of the 


1 Gen. xv. 8 sqq. 

2 That Jehovah’s relation to Israel is not natural but ethical, is the doc- 
trine of the prophets, and is emphasised, in dependence on their teaching, 
in the Book of Deuteronomy. But the passages cited show that the idea 
has its foundation in pre-prophetic times ; and indeed the prophets, though 
they give it fresh and powerful application, plainly do not regard the con- 
ception as an innovation. In fact, a nation like Israel is not a natural unity 
like a clan, and Jehovah as the national God was, from the time of Moses 
downward, no mere natural clan god, but the god of a confederation, so that 
here the idea of a covenant religion is entirely justified. The worship of 
Jehovah throughout all the tribes of Israel and Judah is probably older 
than the genealogical system that derives all the Hebrews from one 
natural parent; cf. Kinship, p. 34n. Mohammed’s conception of heathen 
religion as resting on alliance (Wellh. p. 127) is also to be explained by 
the fact that the great gods of Arabia in his time were not the gods of 
single clans. 


320 OFFERINGS OF LECT. IX. 


deity and his community is impaired or attenuated, the 
help of the god can no longer be confidently looked for. 
And conversely, when famine, plague or other disaster 
shows that the god is no longer active on behalf of his 
own, it is natural to infer that the bond of kinship with 
him has been broken or relaxed, and that it is necessary 
to retie it by a solemn ceremony, in which the sacred life 
is again distributed to every member of the community. 
From this point of view the sacramental rite is also an 
atoning rite, which brings the community again into 
harmony with its alienated god, and the idea of sacrificial 
communion includes within it the rudimentary conception 
of a piacular ceremony. In all the older forms of Semitic 
ritual the notions of communion and atonement are bound 
up together, atonement being simply an act of com- 
munion designed to wipe out all memory of previous 
estrangement. 

The actual working of these ideas may be seen in two 
different groups of ritual observance. Where the whole 
community is involved, the act of communion and atone- 
ment takes the shape of sacrifice. But, besides this 
communal act, we find what may be called private acts 
of worship, in which an individual seeks to establish a 
physical link of union between himself and the deity, 
apart from the sacrifice of a victim, either by the use of 
his own blood in a rite analogous to the blood covenant 
between private individuals, or by other acts involving 
an identical principle. Observances of this kind are 
peculiarly instructive, because they exhibit in a simple 
form the same ideas that lie at the root of the complex 
system of ancient sacrifice; and it will be profitable to 
devote some attention to them before we proceed further 
with the subject of sacrifice proper. By so doing we shall 
indeed be carried into a considerable digression, but I hope 


LECT. IX, ONE’S OWN BLOOD 391 


that we shall return to our main subject with a firmer grasp * 


of the fundamental principles involved.! (See p. 336.) 

In the ritual of the Semites and other nations, both 
ancient and modern, we find many cases in which the 
worshipper sheds his own blood at the altar, as a means 
of recommending himself and his prayers to the deity.2 A 
classical instance is that of the priests of Baal at the 
contest between the god of ‘Tyre and the God of Israel 
(1 Kings xvii. 28). Similarly at the feast of the Syrian 
goddess at Mabbog, the Galli and devotees made gashes in 
their arms, or offered their backs to one another to beat,’ 
exactly as is now done by Persian devotees at the annual 
commemoration of the martyrdom of Hasan and Hosain.! 
I have elsewhere argued that the general diffusion of 
this usage among the Arameans is attested by the Syriac 
word ethkashshaph, “make supplication,” literally “cut 
oneself.” ® 

The current view about such rites in modern as in 
ancient times has been that the effusion of blood without 
taking away life is a substitute for human sacrifice,® an 
explanation which recommends itself by its simplicity, and 
probably hits the truth with regard to certain cases. But, 


1 For the subject discussed in the following paragraphs, compare especially 
the copious collection of materials by Dr. G. A. Wilken, Ueber das 
Haaropfer, etc., Amsterdam, 1886-7. 

2 Cf. Spencer, Leg. Rit. Heb, ii. 13. 2. 3 Dea Syria, 1. 

4 This seems to be a modern survival of the old rites of Anaitis-worship, 
for the similar observances in the worship of Bellona at Rome under the 
empire were borrowed from Cappadocia, and apparently from a form of the 
cult of Anaitis (see the refs. in Roscher, s.v.). The latter, again, was closely 
akin to the worship of the Syrian goddess, and appears to have been 
developed to a great extent under Semitic influence. See my paper on 
**Ctesias and the Semiramis Legend,” Hnglish Hist. Rev., April 1887. 

5 Journ. Phil. xiv. 125; cf. Noldeke in ZDMG. xl. 723. 

§ See Pausanias, iii. 16. 10, where this is the account given of the bloody 
flagellation of the Spartan ephebi at the altar of Artemis Orthia. Similarly 
Euripides, Zph. Taur. 1458 sqq.; cf. also Bourke, Snake Dance of the Moquwis 
of Arizona, p. 196; and especially Wilken, op. cit. p. 68 sqq. 

21 


* 


322 OFFERINGS OF LECT. IX 


as a general explanation of the offering of his own blood 
by a suppliant, it is not quite satisfactory. Human 
sacrifice is offered, not on behoof of the victim, but at the 
expense of the victim on behoof of the sacrificing com- 
munity, while the shedding of one’s own blood is in many 
cases a means of recommending oneself to the godhead. 
Further, there is an extensive class of rites prevalent 
among savage and barbarous peoples in which _blood- 
shedding forms part of an initiatory ceremony, by which 
youths, at or after the age of puberty, are admitted to 
the status of a man, and to a full share in the social 
privileges and sacra of the community. In both cases 
the object of the ceremony must be to tie, or to confirm, 
a blood-bond between the worshipper and the god by a 
means more potent than the ordinary forms of stroking, 
embracing or kissing the sacred stone. To this effect the 
blood of the man is shed at the altar, or applied to the 
image of the god, and has exactly the same efficacy as in» 
the forms of blood covenant that have been already 
discussed.1 And that this is so receives strong confirma- 
tion from the identical practices observed among so many 
nations in mourning for deceased kinsmen. The Hebrew 
law forbade mourners to gash or puncture themselves in 
honour of the dead,? evidently associating this practice, 
which nevertheless was common down to the close of the 
old kingdom,? with heathenish rites. Among the Arabs 


1 That the blood must fall on the altar, or at its foot, is expressly attested 
in certain cases, e.g. in the Spartan worship of Artemis Orthia, and in various 
Mexican rites of the same kind ; see Sahagun, Nouvelle Espagne (French Tr., 
1880), p. 185. In Tibullus’s account of Bellona worship (Lib. i. El. 6, vv. 
45 sqq.) the blood is sprinkled on the idol ; the church-fathers add that those 
who shared in the rite drank one another’s blood. 

2 Lev. xix. 28, xxi. 5; Deut. xiv. 1. 

8 Jer. xvi. 6. The funeral feast which Jeremiah mentions in the follow- 
ing verse (see the Revised Version, and compare Hos. ix. 4), and which has 
for its object to comfort the mourners, is, I apprehend, in its origin a feast 
of communion with the dead ; cf. Tylor, Primitive Culturet, ii. 30 sqq. This 


LECT. IX. ONE'S OWN BLOOD 323 
in like manner, as among the Greeks and other ancient 
nations, it was customary in mourning to scratch the face 
to the effusion of blood." The original meaning of this 
practice appears in the form which it has retained among 
certain rude nations. In New South Wales, “several 
men stand by the open grave and cut each other’s heads 
with a boomerang, and hold their heads over the grave 
so that the blood from the wound falls on the corpse.” ? 
Similarly in Otaheite the blood as well as the tears 
shed in mourning were received on pieces of linen, 
which were thrown on the bier.* Here the application 
of blood and tears to the dead is a pledge of enduring 
affection; and in Australia the ceremony is completed 
by cutting a piece of flesh from the corpse, which is dried, 
cut up and distributed among the relatives and friends of 
the deceased ; some suck their portion “to get strength 
and courage.’ The twosided nature of the rite in this 

: 2 : : * 
case puts it beyond question that the object is to make an 
enduring covenant with the dead. 

Among the Hebrews and Arabs, and indeed among 
many other peoples both ancient and modern, the lacera- 
tion of the flesh in mourning is associated with the practice 
of shaving the head or cutting off part of the hair and 
act, of communion consoles the survivors ; but in the oldest times the con- 
solation has a physical basis; thus the Arabian solwan, or draught that 
makes the mourner forget his grief, consists of water with which is mingled 
dust from the grave (Wellh. p. 163), a form of communion precisely similar 
in principle to the Australian usage of eating a small piece of the corpse. 
There is a tendency at present, in one school of anthropologists, to explain 
all death customs as due to fear of ghosts. But among the Semites, at any 
rate, almost all death customs, from the kissing of the corpse (Gen. 1. 1) 
onwards, are dictated by an affection that endures beyond the grave. 

1 Wellh. p. 181, gives the necessary citations. Cf. on the rites of 
mourning in general, Bokhari, ii. 75 sqg., and Freytag in his Latin version 
of the Haméasa, i. 430 sq. 

2 F. Bonney in Journ. Anthrop. Inst. xiii. (1884) p. 1384. For this and 


the following reference I am indebted to Mr. Frazer. 
® Cook's First Voyage, Bk. i. chap. i9. 


324 OFFERINGS LECT. 1X. 


depositing it in the tomb or on the funeral pyre.’ Here 
also a comparison of the usage of more primitive races 
shows that the rite was originally two-sided, and had 
exactly the same sense as the offering of the mourner’s 
blood. For among the Australians it is permitted to 
pull some hair from the corpse in lieu of a part of 
its flesh. The hair, in fact, is regarded by primitive 
peoples as a living and important part of the body, and 
as such is the object of many taboos and superstitions. 


1 See for the Arabs (among whom the practice was confined to women) 
the authorities referred to above; also Krehl, Rel. der Araber, p. 33, and 
Goldziher, Muh. Stud. i. 248; note also the epithet halac = halica, 
‘‘death.” For the Hebrews—whose custom was not to shave the whole 
head but only the front of it—see Jer. xvi. 6 ; Amos viii. 10; Ezek. vii. 18; 
and the legal prohibitions, Lev. xix. 27 ; Deut. xiv. 1; cf. also Lev. xxi. 5; 
Ezek. xliv. 20. In the Hebrew case it is not expressly said that the hair 
was laid on the tomb, but in Arabia this was done in the times of heathenism, 
and is still done by some Bedouin tribes, according to the testimony of 
modern travellers. A notable feature in the Arabian custom is that after 
shaving her head the mourner wrapped it in the sicad, a cloth stained with 
her own blood. See the verse ascribed to the poetess Al-Khansa in 7, s.¥. 

2 See Frazer, Golden Bough, iii. 258 sqqg. Wilken (op. cit. p. 78 sqq., and 
‘* De Simsonsage,”’ Gids, 1888, No. 5) has collected many instances to show 
that the hair is often regarded as the special seat of life and strength. It 
may be conjectured that this idea is connected with the fact that the hair 
continues to grow, and so to manifest life, even in mature age, and this con- 
jecture is supported by the fact that the nails are among many peoples the 
object of similar superstitious regard. The practice of cutting off the hair 
of the head, or a part of it, is pretty widely diffused ; see Wilken, Haaropfer, 
p. 74, and for the Arabs an isolated statement of a Mahtby Arabin Doughty, 
i. 450, to which Mr. Doughty does not appear to attach much weight. Yet 
it seems to me that a custom of cutting off the hair of the dead is implied 
when we read that the Bekrites before the desperate battle of Cidda shaved 
their heads as devoting themselves to death (Ham. 253, 1. 17), and perhaps 
also in Ibn Hisham, p. 254, 1. 16 sq., where a man dreams that his head is 
shaven and accepts this as an omen of death. Wilken supposes that the 
hair was originally cut away from the corpse, or from the dying man, to 
facilitate the escape of the soul from the body. This notion might very well 
recommend itself to the savage mind, inasmuch asthe haircontinues to grow 
for some time after death. But when we find the hair of the dead used as a 
means of divination, or as a charm, as is done among many peoples (Wilken, 
Haaropfer, Anh. ii.), we are led to think that the main object in cutting it off 
must be to preserve it as a means of continued connection with the dead. 
The possession of hair from a man’s head or of a shaving from his nails is, in 


LECT. IX, OF HAIR 825 


Thus, when the hair of the living is deposited with the 
dead, and the hair of the dead remains with the living, 
a permanent bond of connection unites the two. 

Now among the Semites and other ancient peoples the 
hair-offering is common, not only in mourning but in the 
worship of the gods, and the details of the ritual in the 
two cases are so exactly similar that we cannot doubt that 
a single principle is involved in both. The hair of Achilles 
was dedicated to the river-god Spercheus, in whose honour 
it was to be shorn on his safe return from Troy; but, 
knowing that he should never return, the hero transferred 
the offermg to the dead Patroclus, and laid his yellow 
locks in the hand of the corpse. Arab women laid their 
hair on the tomb of the dead; young men and maidens 
in Syria cut off their flowing tresses and deposited them 
in caskets of gold and silver in the temples.1 The 
Hebrews shaved the fore part of the head in mourning ; 
the Arabs of Herodotus habitually adopted a like tonsure 
in honour of their god Orotal, who was supposed to wear 
his hair in the same way.? To argue from these parallels 


primitive magic, a potent means of getting and retaining a hold over him. 
This, I suppose, is the reason why an Arab before releasing a captive cut off 
his hair and put it in his quiver; see the authorities cited by Wilken, p. 
111, and add Rasmussen, Addit. p. 70sqg., Agh. xii. 128. 1. On the same 
principle Mohammed’s hair was preserved by his followers and worn on their 
persons (Afuh. in Med. 429, Agh. xv. 12. 13). One such hair is the famous 
relic in the mosque of the Companion at Cairawan. 

1 Dea Syria, 1x., where modern editors, by a totally inadmissible con- 
jecture, make it appear that maidens offered their locks, and youths only 
their beard. Cf. Ephraem Syrus, Op. Syr. i. 246; the Syriac version of 
Lev. xix. 27 renders ‘‘ ye shall not let your hair grow long,” and Ephraem 
explains that it was the custom of the heathen to let their hair grow fora 
certain time, and then on a fixed day to shave the head in a temple or beside 
a sacred fountain. 

2 The peculiar Arab tonsure is already referred to in Jer. xxv. 23, R.V. 
It is found elsewhere in antiquity, e.g. in Eubcea and in some parts of Asia 
Minor (Jdiad, ii. 542; Plut. Thes. 5; Strabo, x. 3. 6; Cheerilus, ap. Jos., 
c. Ap. i. 22; Pollux, ii. 28). At Delphi, where Greek ephebi were wont to 
offer the long hair of their childhood, this peculiar cut was called énexis, for 


326 OFFERINGS LECT. IX. 


between customs of mourning and of religion that the 
worship of the gods is based on the cult of the dead, 
would be to go beyond the evidence; what does appear 
is that the same means which were deemed efficacious 
to maintain an enduring covenant between the living 
and the dead were used to serve the religious purpose 
of binding together in close union the worshipper and 
his god. 

Starting from this general principle, we can explain 
without difficulty the two main varieties of the hair- 
offering as it occurs in religion. In its nature the 
offering is a personal one, made on behalf of an individual, 
not of a community. It does not therefore naturally find 
a place in the stated and periodical exercises of local or 
tribal religion, where a group of men is gathered together 
in an ordinary act of communal worship. Its proper 
object is to create or to emphasise the relation between 
an individual and a god, and so it is in place either 
in ceremonies of initiation, by which a new member is 
incorporated into the circle of a particular religion, or 
in connection with special vows and special acts of devo- 
tion, by which a worshipper seeks to knit more closely 
the bond between himself and his god. Thus in Greek 
religion the hair-offering occurs either at the moment when 
a youth enters on manhood, and so takes up a full share 
in the religious as well as the political responsibilities of 
a citizen, or else in fulfilment of a vow made at some 
moment when a man is in special need of divine succour. 
The same thing is true of Semitic religion, but to make 
this clear requires some explanation. 


Theseus was said to have shorn only his front locks at the temple. Amiong 
the Curetes this was the way in which warriors wore their hair ; presumably, 
therefore, children let the front locks grow long, and sacrificed them on 
entering manhood, just as among the Arabs the two side locks are the 
distinguishing mark of an immature lad. 


LECT. IX. OF HAIR 327 


In early societies a man is destined by his birth to 
become a member of a particular political and social circle, 
which is at the same time a distinct religious community. 
But in many cases this destination has to be confirmed by 
a formal act of admission to the community. The child 
or immature stripling has not yet full civil privileges and 
responsibilities, and in general, on the principle that civil 
and religious status are inseparable, he has no full part 
either in the rights or in the duties of the communal 
religion. He is excluded from many religious ceremonies, 
and conversely he can do without offence things which 
on religious grounds are strictly forbidden to the full 
tribesman. Among rude nations the transition from * 
civil and religious immaturity to maturity is frequently 
preceded by certain probationary tests of courage and 
endurance ; for the full tribesman must above all things 
be a warrior. In any case the step from childhood te 
manhood is too important to take place without a formal 
ceremony and public rites of initiation, importing the full 
and final incorporation of the neophyte into the civil and 
religious fellowship of his tribe or community.’ It is clear 
from what has already been said, that the application of the 
blood of the youth to the sacred symbol, or the depositing 
of his hair at the shrine of his people’s god, might form a 
significant feature in such a ritual; and among very many 
rude peopies one or other of these ceremonies is actually 
observed in connection with the rites which every young 
man must pass through before he attains the position of a 
warrior, and is allowed to marry and exercise the other 
prerogatives of perfect manhood. Among wholly barbar- 
ous races these initiation ceremonies have great importance, 


1 In some cases the rite seems to be connected with the transference of 
the lad from the mother’s to the father’s kin. But for the present argu- 
ment it is not necessary to discuss this aspect of the matter. 


328 INITIATORY LECT. IX. 


and are often extremely repulsive in character. The blood- 
offering in particular frequently takes a form which makes 
it a severe test of the neophyte’s courage—as in the cruel 
flagellation of Spartan ephebi at the altar of Artemis 
Orthia, or in the frightful ordeal which takes the place of 
simple circumcision in some of the wilder mountain tribes 
of Arabia.1 As manners become less fierce, and society 
ceases to be organised mainly for war, the ferocity of 
primitive ritual is naturally softened, and the initiation | 
ceremony gradually loses importance, till at last it becomes 
a mere domestic celebration, which in its social aspect 
may be compared to the private festivities of a modern 
family when a son comes of age, and in its religious aspect 
to the first communion of a youthful Catholic. When the 
rite loses political significance, and becomes purely religious, 
it is not necessary that it should be deferred to the age of 
full manhood ; indeed, the natural tendency of pious parents 
will be to dedicate their child as early as possible to the 
god who is to be his protector through life. Thus circum- 
cision, which was originally a preliminary to marriage, and 
so a ceremony of introduction to the full prerogative of 
manhood, is now generally undergone by Mohammedan 
boys before they reach maturity, while, among the 
Hebrews, infants were circumcised on the eighth day from 
birth. Similar variations of usage apply to the Semitic 
hair-offering. Among the Arabs in the time of, Mohammed 
it was common to sacrifice a sheep on the birth of a child, 
and then to shave the head of the infant and daub the 
scalp with the blood of the victim. This ceremony— 
callek ‘acica, or “ the cutting off of the hair ”"——was designed 
to “avert evil from the child,” and was evidently an act of 
dedication by which the infant was brought under the 


_ 1 The connection between circumcision and the initiatory blood-offering 
will be considered more fully in another place. 


LECT. IX. HAIR-OFFERINGS 329 


protection of the god of the community.1 Among Lucian’s * 
Syrians, on the other hand, the hair of boys and girls was 
allowed to grow unshorn as a consecrated thing from birth 
to adolescence, and was cut off and dedicated at the 
sanctuary as a necessary preliminary to marriage. In 
other words, the hair-offering of youths and maidens 
was a ceremony of religious initiation, through which 
they had to pass before they were admitted to the 
status of social maturity. The same thing appears to 
have occurred, at least in the case of maidens, at 
Phoenician sanctuaries; for the female worshippers at 
the Adonis feast of Byblus, who, according to the author 
just cited, were required to sacrifice either their hair or 
their chastity,2 appear from other accounts to have been x 
generally maidens, of whom this act of devotion was 
exacted as a preliminary to marriage. I apprehend that 


1 That the hair was regarded as an offering appears from the Moslem 
practice, referred by tradition to the example of Fatima, of bestowing in 
alms its weight of silver. Alms are a religious oblation, and in the similar 
custom which Herod. ii. 65, Diod. i. 83, attest for ancient Egypt, the silver 
was paid to the sanctuary. See for further details Kinship, p. 179 sqq.. 
where I have dwelt on the way in which such a ceremony would facilitate 
the change of the child’s kin, when the rule that the son followed the 
father and not the mother began to be established. I still think that 
this point is worthy of notice, and that the desire to fix the child’s 
religion, and with it his tribal connection, at the earliest possible moment, 
may have been one cause for performing the ceremony in infancy. But 
Noldeke’s remarks in ZDMG. xl. 184, and a fuller consideration of the 
whole subject of the hair-offering, have convinced me that the name ‘acica 
is not connected with the idea of change of kin, but is derived from the 
cutting away of the first hair. In this, however, I see a confirmation of the 
view that among the Arabs, as among the Syrians, the old usage was to 
defer the cutting of the first hair till adolescence, for ‘acca is a very strong 
term to apply to the shaving of the scanty hair of a new-born infant, while 
it is quite appropriate to the sacrifice of the long locks characteristic of boy- 
hood. Cf. also the use of the same verb in the phrases ‘occat tamimatuhu 
(Kamil, 405, 1. 19), ‘acca ’l-shababu tamimati (Taj, s.v.), used of the cutting 
away, When manhood was reached, of the amulet worn during childhood. 
In modern Syria (Sidon district) a child’s hair must not be cut till it is a 
year old (7DPYV. vii. 85). 

2 Dea Syria, vi. 

*Sozomen, v. 10. 7. Of. Socrates, ii 18, and the similar usage in 


330 THE HAIR-OFFERING LECT. IX 


among the Arabs, in like manner, the ‘acica was originally 
a ceremony of initiation into manhood, and that the 
transference of the ceremony to infancy was a later 
innovation, for among the Arabs, as among the Syrians, 
young lads let their hair grow long, and the sign of 
immaturity was the retention of the side locks, which 
adult warriors did not wear.1 The cutting of the side 
locks was therefore a formal mark of admission into 
manhood, and in the time of Herodotus it must also 
have been a formal initiation into the worship of Orotal, 
for otherwise the religious significance which the Greek 
historian attaches to the shorn forehead of the Arabs is 
unintelligible. At that time, therefore, we must conclude 
that a hair-offering, precisely equivalent to the ‘actca, took 
place upon entry into manhood, and thereafter the front 
hair was habitually worn short as a permanent memorial 
of this dedicatory sacrifice. It is by no means clear 
that even in later times the initiatory ceremony was 
invariably performed in infancy, for the name ‘actca, which 
in Arabic denotes the first hair as well as the religious 
ceremony of cutting it off, is sometimes applied to the 
ruddy locks of a lad approaching manhood,? and figurat- 
ively to the plumage of a swift young ostrich or the 
tufts of an ass’s hair, neither of which has much resem- 
blance to the scanty down on the head of a new-born 
babe.? 

It would seem, therefore, that the oldest Semitic usage, 
both in Arabia and in Syria, was to sacrifice the hair of 


Babylon, Herod. i. 199. We are not to suppose that participation in these 
rites was confined to maidens before marriage (Euseb. Vit. Const. iii. 58. 1), 
but it appears that it was obligatory on them. 

1See Wellh., Heid. p. 198. 

2 Imraulcais, 3.1; see also Lisan, xii. 129, ]. 18, and Dozy, s.v. 

3 Zohair, 1. 17; Diw. Hodh. 232. 9. The sense of ‘‘down,” which 
Noldeke, wt supra, gives to the word in these passages, is hardly appropriate. 


LECT, IX. IN LATER LIFE 331 


childhood upon admission to the religious and social status 
of manhood. 

The bond between the worshipper and his god which 
was established by means of the hair-offering had an 
enduring character, but it was natural to renew it from 
time to time, when there was any reason to fear that the 
interest of the deity in his votary might have been relaxed. 
Thus it was customary for the inhabitants of Taif in Arabia 
to shave their heads at the sanctuary of the town whenever 
they returned from a journey! Here the idea seems to be 
that absence from the holy place might have loosened the 
religious tie, and that it was proper to bind it fast again. 
In like manner the hair-offering formed part of the ritual 
in every Arabian pilgrimage,” and also at the great feasts 
of Byblus and Bambyde,? which were not mere local 
celebrations, but drew worshippers from distant parts. 
The worshipper in these cases desired to attach himself 
as firmly as possible to a deity and a shrine with which 
he could not hope to keep up frequent and regular con- 
nection, and thus it was fitting that, when he went forth 
from the holy place, he should leave part of himself 
behind, as a permanent link of union with the temple 
and the god that inhabited it. 

The Arabian and Syrian pilgrimages with which the 
hair-offering was associated were exceptional services ; in 
many cases their object was to place the worshipper under 
the protection of a foreign god, whose cult had no place in 
the pilgrim’s local and natural religion, and in any case 


1 Muh. in Med. p. 381. 

2 Wellh. p. 123 sg.; Goldziher, op. cit. p. 249. That the hair was 
shaved as an offering appears most clearly in the worship of Ocaisir, where 
it was mixed with an oblation of meal. 

3 Dea Syria, vi., lv. In the latter case the eyebrows also were shaved, 
and the sacrifice of hair from the eyebrow reappears in Peru, in the laws of 
the Incas. On the painted inscription of Citium (CJS. No. 86) barbers 
(53) are enumerated among the stated ministers of the temple 


332 THE HAIR—OFFERING LECT. IX. 


the service was not part of a man’s ordinary religious 
duties, but was spontaneously undertaken as a work of 
special piety, or under the pressure of circumstances that 
made the pilgrim feel the need of coming into closer 
touch with the divine powers. Among the Hebrews, at 
least in later times, when stated pilgrimages to Jerusalem 
were among the ordinary and imperative exercises of 
every man’s religion, the pilgrimage did not involve a hair- 
offering, nor is it probable that in any part of antiquity 
this form of service was required in connection with 
ordinary visits to one’s own local temple. The Penta- 
teuchal law recognises the hair-offering only in the case 
of the peculiar vow of the Nazarite, the ritual of which 
is described in Num. vi. The details there given do 
not help us to understand what part the Nazirate held 
in the actual religious life of the Jews under the law, 
but from Josephus! we gather that the vow was generally 
taken in times of sickness or other trouble, and that it 
was therefore exactly parallel to the ordinary Greek vow 
to offer the hair on deliverance from urgent danger. From 
the antique point of view, the fact that a man is in straits 
or peril is a proof that the divine powers on which his life 
ig dependent are estranged or indifferent, and a warning to 
bring himself into closer relation with the god from whom 
he is estranged. The hair-offering affords the natural 
means towards this end, and, if the offering cannot be 
accomplished at the moment, it ought to be made the 
subject of a vow, for a vow is the recognised way of 
antedating a future act of service and making its efficacy 
oegin at once. A vow of this kind, aiming at the redin- 
tegration of normal relations with the deity, is naturally 
more than a bare promise; it is a promise for the per- 
formance of which one at once begins to make active 
1B. J. ii, 15. 1. 


LECT. IX. IN VOWS aco 


preparation, so that the life of the votary from the time 
when he assumes the engagement is taken out of the 
ordinary sphere of secular existence, and becomes one 
continuous act of religion.’ As soon as a man_ takes 
the vow to poll his locks at the sanctuary, the hair is a 
consecrated thing, and as such, inviolable till the moment 
for discharging the vow arrives; and so the flowing locks 
of the Hebrew Nazarite or of a Greek votary like Achilles 
are the visible marks of his consecration. In like manner 
the Arabian pilgrim, whose resolution to visit a distant 
shrine was practically a vow, was not allowed to poll 
or even to comb and wash his locks till the pilgrimage 
was accomplished; and on the same principle the whole 
course of his journey, from the day when he first set his 
face towards the temple with the resolution to do homage 
there, was a period of consecration (thram), during which 
he was subject to a number of other ceremonial restrictions 
or taboos, of the same kind with those imposed by actual 
presence in the sanctuary. 

The taboos connected with pilgrimages and other vows 
require some further elucidation, but to go into the matter 
now would carry us too far from the point immediately 
before us. I will therefore reserve what I have still to say 
on this subject for an additional note What has been 
said already covers all the main examples of the hair-offer- 
ing among the Semites.© They present considerable variety 


1 Of course, if the vow is conditional on something to happen in the future, 
the engagement does not necessarily come into force till the condition is 
fulfilled. 

2 In Mohammedan law it is expressly reckoned as a vow. 

3 Under Islam the consecration of the pilgrim need not begin till he 
reaches the boundaries of the sacred territory. But it is permitted, and 
according to many authorities preferable, to assume the thraém on leaving 
one’s home ; and this was the ancient practice. 

4 See Additional Note I, The Taboos incident to Pilgrimages and Vows. 

5 Quite distinct from the hair-offering are the cases in which the hair is 
shaved off (but not consecrated) as a means of purification after pollution ; 


334 OFFERINGS OF LECT. IX, 


of aspect, but the result of our discussion is that they can 
be referred to a single principle. In their origin the hair- 
offering and the offering of one’s own blood are precisely 
similar in meaning. But the blood- offering, while it 
presents the idea of life-union with the god in the strongest 
possible form, is too barbarous to be long retained as an 
ordinary act of religion. It continued to be practised 
among the civilised Semites, by certain priesthoods and 
societies of devotees; but in the habitual worship of lay- 
men it either fell out of use or was retained in a very 
attenuated form, in the custom of tatooing the flesh with 
* punctures in honour of the deity.’ The hair-offering, on 
the other hand, which involved nothing offensive to civilised 


e.g. Lev. xiv. 9 (purification of leper); Dea Syria, liii. (after defilement by 
the dead); Deut. xxi. 12. In such cases the hair is cut off because defile- 
ment is specially likely to cling to it. 

1 For the criyuzere« on the wrists and necks of the heathen Syrians the 
classical passage is Dea Syria, lix.; compare for further evidence the discus- 
sion in Spencer, Leg. Rit. Heb. ii. 14; and see also Kinship, p. 249 sqq. 
The tattooed marks were the sign that the worshipper belonged to the god ; 
thus at the temple of Heracles at the Canobic mouth of the Nile, the fugitive 
slave who had been marked with the sacred stigmata could not be reclaimed 
by his master (Herod. ii. 113). The practice therefore stands on one line 
with the branding or tattooing of cattle, slaves and prisoners of war. But in 
Lev. xix. 28, where tattooing is condemned as a heathenish practice, it is 
immediately associated with incisions in the flesh made in mourning or in 
honour of the dead, and this suggests that in their ultimate origin the 
stigmata are nothing more than the permanent scars of punctures made to 
draw blood for a ceremony of self-dedication to the deity. Among the Arabs 4 
I find no direct evidence of a religious significance attached to tattooing, and 
the practice appears to have been confined to women, as was also the habitual ¢ 
use of amulets in mature life. The presumption is that this coincidence is 
not accidental, but that the tattooed marks were originally sacred stigmata o 
like those of the Syrians, and so were conceived to have the force of a charm. ; 
Pietro della Valle (ed. 1843), i. 395, describes the Arabian tattooing, and says 
that it is practised all over the East by men as well as by women. But so 
far as I have observed, it is only Christian men that tattoo in Syria, and 
with them the pattern chosen is a sacred symbol, which has been shown to 
me as a proof that a man was exempt from the military service to which 
Moslems are liable. In Farazdac, ed. Boucher, p. 232, 1. 9, a tattooed hand 
is the mark of a foreigner. In Egypt men of the peasant class are some- 


times tattooed. 


LECT, IX, CLOTHING AND RAGS 335 


feelings, continued to play an important part in religion to 
the close of paganism, and even entered into Christian ritual 
in the tonsure of priests and nuns." 

Closely allied to the practice of leaving part of oneself 
—whether blood or hair—in contact with the god at the 
sanctuary, are offerings of part of one’s clothes or other 
things that one has worn, such as ornaments or weapons. 
In the Jihad, Glaucus and Diomede exchange armour in 
token of their ancestral friendship; and when Jonathan 
makes a covenant of love and brotherhood with David, he 
invests him with his garments, even to his sword, his bow, 
and his girdle” Among the Arabs, he who seeks pro- 
tection lays hold of the garments of the man to whom 
he appeals, or more formally ties a knot in the head- 
shawl of his protector. In the old literature, “ pluck 
away my garments from thine” means “ put an end to our 
attachment.”* The clothes are so far part of a man that 
they can serve as a vehicle of personal connection. Hence 
the religious significance of suspending on an idol or 
Dhit Anwat, not only weapons, ornaments and complete 
garments, but mere shreds from one’s raiment. These 
rag - offerings are still to be seen hanging on the sacred 


1 The latter was practised in Jerome’s time in the monasteries of Egypt 
and Syria (Zp. 147 ad Sabinianum). 

21 Sam. xviii. 3 sg. I presume that by ancient law Saul was bound to 
acknowledge the formal covenant thus made between David and his son, and 
that this ought to be taken into account in judging of the subsequent 
relations between the three. 

3 Wellhausen, Heidenthwm, p. 109, note 3; Burckhardt, Bed. and Wah. 
i. 130 sq.; Blunt, Bedowin Tribes of the Euphrates, i. 42. The knot, says 
Burckhardt, is tied that the protector may look out for witnesses to prove 
the act, and ‘‘the same custom is observed when any transaction is to be 
witnessed.” But primarily, I apprehend, the knot is the symbolic sign of 
the engagement that the witnesses are called to prove, and I was told in the 
Hijaz that the suppliant gets a fragment of the fringe of the shawl to keep 
as his token of the transaction. In the covenant sacrifice, Herod. iii. 8, the 
blood is applied to the sacred stones with threads from the garments of the 
two contracting parties. 

4 Tmraule., Moad/. 1. 21 


336 ATONING FORCE LECT. IX, 


trees of Syria and on the tombs of Mohammedan saints ; 
they are not gifts in the ordinary sense, but pledges of 
attachment. It is possible that the rending of garments 
in mourning was originally designed to procure such an 
offering for the dead, just as the tearing of the hair on the 
like occasion is not a natural sign of mourning, but a relic 
of the hair-offermg. Natural signs of mourning must not 
be postulated lightly ; in all such matters habit is a second 
nature.” 

Finally, I may note in a single word that the counter- 
part of the custom of leaving part of oneself or of one’s 
clothes with the deity at the sanctuary, is the custom of 
wearing sacred relics as charms, so that something belonging 
to the god remains always in contact with one’s person.? 

The peculiar instructiveness of the series of usages 
which we have been considering, and the justification for 
the long digression from the subject of sacrifice into which 
they have led us, is that the ceremonies designed to 
establish a life-bond between the worshipper and his god 
are here dissociated from the death of a victim and from 
every idea of penal satisfaction to the deity. They have 

1 A masterful man, in the early days of Islam, reserves a water for his 
own use by hanging pieces of fringe of his red blanket on a tree beside it, or 
by throwing them into the pool; Farazdac, p. 195, Agh. viii. 159. 10 sqq. 

2It is to be noted that most of the standing methods of expressing 
sorrow and distress are derived from the formal usages employed in primitive 
times in mourning for the dead. These usages, however, are not all to be 
derived from one principle. While the rudest nations seek to keep up their 
connection with the beloved dead, they also believe that very dangerous 
influences hover round death-beds, corpses, and graves, and many funeral 
ceremonies are observed as safeguards against these, as has been well shown 
by Mr. Frazer, Journ. Anthr. Inst. xv. 64 sqq.; though I think he has not 
sufficiently allowed for another principle that underlies many such customs, 
namely, the affectionate desire of even the rudest peoples to keep up a friendly 
intercourse with their dead friends and relations. Compare below, p. 370. 

3 Thus in Palestine, at the present time, the man who hangs a rag on a 
sacred tree takes with him in return, as a preservative against evil, one ol 


the rags that have been sanctified by hanging there for some time before 
(PEF. Qu. St. 1893, p. 204). 


LECT. IX. OF BLOOD-OFFERINGS 337 
indeed an atoning force, whenever they are used to renew 
relations with a god who is temporarily estranged, but 
this is merely a consequence of the conception that the 
physical link which they establish between the divine and 
human parties in the rite binds the god to the man as 
well as the man to the god. Even in the case of the 
blood-offering there is no reason to hold that the pain 
of the self-inflicted wounds had originally any significant 
place in the ceremony. But no doubt, as time went on, 
the barbarous and painful sacrifice of one’s own blood 
came to be regarded as more efficacious than the simpler 
and commoner hair-offering; for in religion what is un- 
usual always appears to be more potent, and more fitted to 
reconcile an offended deity. 

The use of the Syriac word ethkashshaph seems to show 
that the sacrifice of one’s own blood was mainly associated 
among the Arameans with deprecation or supplication to 
an angry god, and though I cannot point among the Semites 
to any formal atoning ceremony devised on this principle, 
the idea involved can be well illustrated by a rite still 
sometimes practised in Arabia, as a means of making atone- 
ment to a man for offences short of murder. With bare 
and shaven head the offender appears at the door of the 
injured person, holding a knife in each hand, and, reciting a 
formula provided for the purpose, strikes his head several 
times with the sharp blades. Then, drawing his hands over 
his bloody scalp, he wipes them on the doorpost. The 
other must then come out and cover the suppliant’s head 
with a shawl, after which he kills a sheep, and they sit 
down together at a feast of reconciliation. The character- 
istic point in this rite is the application of the blood to the 
doorpost, which, as in the passover service, is equivalent 
to applying it to the person of the inmates. Here, there- 
fore, we still see the old idea at work, that the reconciling 

22 


338 ARABIAN LECT. IX, 


value of the rite lies, not in the self-inflicted wounds, but 
in the application of the blood to make a life-bond between 
the two parties. 

On the same analogy, when we turn to those blood- 
rites in which a whole community takes part, and in which 
therefore a victim has to be slaughtered to provide the 
material for the ceremony, we may expect to find that, 
at least in old times, the significant part of the ceremony 
does not lie in the death of the victim, but in the appli- 
cation of its life or life-blood; and in this expectation we 
shall not be disappointed. 

Of all Semitic sacrifices those of the Arabs have the rudest 
and most visibly primitive character; and among the Arabs, 
where there was no complicated fire-ceremony at the altar, 
the sacramental meal stands out in full relief as the very 
essence of the ritual. Now, in the oldest known form of 
Arabian sacrifice, as described by Nilus, the camel chosen 
as the victim is bound upon a rude altar of stones piled 
together, and when the leader of the band has thrice led 
the worshippers round the altar in a solemn procession 
accompanied with chants, he inflicts the first wound, while 
the last words of the hymn are still upon the lips of the 
congregation, and in all haste drinks of the blood that 
gushes forth. Forthwith the whole company fall on the 
victim with their swords, hacking off pieces of the quiver- 
ing flesh and devouring them raw with such wild haste, 
that in the short interval between the rise of the day star 
which marked the hour for the service to begin, and the 
disappearance of its rays before the rising sun, the entire 
camel, body and bones, skin, blood and entrails, is wholly 
devoured. The plain meaning of this is that the victim was 


1This must not be regarded as incredible. According to Artemidorus, 
ap. Strabo, xvi. 4. 17, the Troglodytes ate the bones and skin as well as the 
flesh of cattle. 


LECT. IX. SACRIFICE 339 
devoured before its life had left the still warm blood and 
flesh,—raw flesh is called “living” flesh in Hebrew and 
Syriac,—and that thus in the most literal way all those who 
shared in the ceremony absorbed part of the victim’s life 
into themselves. One sees how much more forcibly than 
any ordinary meal such a rite expresses the establishment 
or confirmation of a bond of common life between the 
worshippers, and also, since the blood is shed upon the 
altar itself, between the worshippers and their god. 

In this sacrifice, then, the significant factors are two: the 
conveyance of the living blood to the godhead, and the 
absorption of the living flesh and blood into the flesh and 
blood of the worshippers. Each of these is effected in the 
simplest and most direct manner, so that the meaning 
of the ritual is perfectly transparent. In later Arabian 
sacrifices, and still more in the sacrifices of the more 
civilised Semitic nations, the primitive crudity of the 
ceremonial was modified, and the meaning of the act is 
therefore more or less disguised, but the essential type of 
the ritual remains the same. 

In all Arabian sacrifices except the holocaust—which 
occurs only in the case of human victims—the godward 
side of the ritual is summed up in the shedding of the 
victim’s blood, so that it flows over the sacred symbol, or 
gathers in a pit (ghabghab) at the foot of the altar idol. 
An application of the blood to the summit of the sacred 
stone may be added, but that is all! What enters the 
ghabghab is held to be conveyed to the deity; thus at 
certain Arabian shrines the pit under the altar was the 
place where votive treasures were deposited. A pit to 
receive the blood existed also at Jerusalem under the 
altar of burnt-offering, and similarly in certain Syrian 
aacrifices the blood was collected in a hollow, which 


1 Zohair, x. 24, 


340 ARABIAN LECT. IX, 
apparently bore the name of mashkan, and thus was 
designated as the habitation of the godhead.? 

In Arabia, accordingly, the most solemn act in the ritual 
is the shedding of the blood, which in Nilus’s narrative 
takes place at the moment when the sacred chant comes 
to an end. This, therefore, is the crisis of the service, to 
which the choral procession round the altar leads up? 
In later Arabia, the tawaf, or act of circling the sacred 
stone, was still a principal part of religion; but even 
before Mohammed’s time it had begun to be dissociated 
from sacrifice, and become a meaningless ceremony. 
Again, the original significance of the wocif, or “ standing,” 
which in the ritual of the post-Mohammedan pilgrimage 
has in like manner become an unmeaning ceremony, is 
doubtless correctly explained by Wellhausen, who compares 
it with the scene described by more than one old poet, 
where the worshippers stand round the altar idol, at a 
respectful distance, gazing with rapt attention, while the 
slaughtered victims lie stretched on the ground. The 
moment of this act of adoration must be that when the 
slaughter of the victims is just over, or still in progress, 
and their blood is draining into the ghabghab, or being 
applied by the priest to the head of the nosb8 

In the developed forms of North Semitic worship, 
where fire-sacrifices prevail, the slaughter of the victim 
loses its importance as the critical point in the ritual. 


1See the text published by Dozy and De Goeje in the Actes of the 
Leyden Congress of Orientalists, 1883, vol. ili, pp. 337, 363, For the 
ghabghab, see p. 198 supra, and Wellhausen, p. 103. Compare also the 
Persian ritual, Strabo, xv. 3. 14, and that of certain Greek sacrifices, 
Plutarch, Aristides, xxi.: dv ravpoy tis cay rupay ofdtas, 

2 The festal song of praise (65x, tahlil) properly goes with the dance 
round the altar (cf. Ps. xxvi. 6 sq.), for in primitive times song and dance 
are inseparable. (Cf. Wellh. 110 sq.) 

8 Wellh. p. 61 sg.; Yacit, iii. 94, 1. 13 sq. (cf. Néldeke in ZDMG. 1887, 
p. 721); ibid. p. 182, 1. 2 sq. (supra, p. 228). 


LECT. 1X. SACRIFICE 341 


The altar is above all things a hearth, and the burning of 
the sacrificial fat is the most solemn part of the service. 

This, however, is certainly not primitive; for even in 
the period of fire-sacrifice the Hebrew altar is called 
nar, that is, “the place of slaughter,”’! and in ancient 
times the victim was slain on or beside the altar, just as 
among the Arabs, as appears from the account of the 
sacrifice of Isaac, and from 1 Sam. xiv. 342 The 
latter passage proves that in the time of Saul the Hebrews 
still knew a form of sacrifice in which the offering was 
completed in the oblation of the blood. And even in 
the case of fire-sacrifice the blood was not cast upon the 
flames, but dashed against the sides of the altar or poured 
out at its foot; the new ritual was not able wholly to 
displace the old. Nay, the sprinkling of the blood con- 
tinued to be regarded as the principal point of the ritual 
down to the last days of Jewish ritual; for on it the 
atoning efficacy of the sacrifice depended.® 

As regards the manward part of the ritual, the revolt- 
ing details given by Nilus have naturally no complete 
parallel in the worship of the more civilised Semites, or 
even of the later Arabs. In lieu of the scramble described 
by Nilus—the wild rush to cut gobbets of flesh from the 
still quivering victim—we find among the later Arabs a 
partition of the sacrificial flesh among all who are present 
at the ceremony. Yet it seems possible that the ydza, or 
“ permission,” that is, the word of command that terminates 
the wocif, was originally the permission to fall upon the 


1 Aram. madbah, Arab. madhbah ; the latter means also a trench in the 
ground, which is intelligible from what has been said about the ghabghab. 

2 Supra, p. 202. In Ps. ecxviii. 27 the festal victim is bound with 
cords to the horns of the altar, a relic of ancient usage which was no 
longer intelligible to the Septuagint translators or to the Jewish traditional 
expositors. Cf, the sacrificial stake to which the victim is bound in Vedic 
sacrifices. 

* Heb. ix. 22; Reland, Ant. Heb. p. 300 (Gem. on Zeb. xlii. 1). 


342 BLOOD-EATING IN LECT, IX. 


slaughtered victim. In the Meccan pilgrimage the ydaza 
which terminates the woctf at ‘Arafa was the signal for 
a hot race to the neighbouring sanctuary of Mozdalifa, 
where the sacred fire of the god Cozah burned; it was, in 
fact, not so much the permission to leave ‘Arafa as to draw 
near to Cozah. The race itself is called ifada, which may 
mean either “dispersion” or “distribution.” It cannot 
well mean the former, for “Arafa is not holy ground, but 
merely the point of assemblage, just outside the Haram, 
at which the ceremonies began, and the station at ‘Arafa 
is only the preparation for the vigil at Mozdalifa. On 
the other hand, if the meaning is “ distribution,” the t/ada 
answers to the rush of Nilus’s Saracens to partake of the 
sacrifice. The only difference is that at Mozdalifa the 
crowd is not allowed to assemble close to the altar, but 
has to watch the performance of the solemn rites from 
afar; compare Ex. xix. 10—13.1 

The substitution of an orderly division of the victim 
for the scramble described by Nilus does not touch the 
meaning of the ceremonial. Much more important, from 
its effect in disguising an essential feature in the ritual, 
is the modification by which, in most Semitic sacrifices, the 
flesh is not eaten “alive” or raw, but sodden or roasted. 
It is obvious that this change could not fail to establish 
itself with the progress of civilisation; but it was still 
possible to express the idea of communion in the actual 
life of the victim by eating its flesh “with the blood.” 


1 Tt may be noted that the ceremonies at Mozdalifa lay wholly between 
sunset and sunrise, and that there was apparently one sacrifice just at or 
after sunset and another before sunrise,—another point of contact with the 
ritual described by Nilus. The woci#f corresponding to the morning sacrifice 
was of course held at Mozdalifa within the Haram, for the pilgrims were 
already consecrated by the previous service. Nabigha in two places speaks 
of a race of pilgrims to a place called lal. If the reference is to the Meccan 
hajj, Ilal must be Mozdalifa not, as the geographers suppose, a place at 
“Arafa. 


LECT. IX. LATER SACRIFICES 343 


That bloody morsels were consumed by the heathen in 
Palestine, and also by the less orthodox Israelites, is 
apparent from Zech. ix. 7 ; Ezek. xxxili. 25 ;1 Lev. xix. 26; 
and the context of these passages, with the penalty of 
excommunication attached to the eating of blood in Lev. 
vii. 27, justify us in assuming that this practice had a 
directly religious significance, and occurred in connection 
with sacrifice. That it was in fact an act of communion 
with heathen deities, is affirmed by Maimonides, not as a 
mere inference from the biblical texts, but on the basis of 
Arabic accounts of the religion of the Harranians.2 It 
would seem, however, that in the northern Semitic lands 
the ritual of blood-eating must already have been rare in 
the times to which our oldest documents belong; pre- 
sumably, indeed, it was confined to certain mystic initiations, 
and did not extend to ordinary sacrifices.’ 


1] cannot comprehend why Cornill corrects Ezek. xxxiii. 25 by Ezek. 
xviii. 6, xxii. 9, and not conversely ; cf. LXX. on Lev. xix. 26, where the 
same mistake occurs. 

2 Dalalat al-Hairin, iii. 46, vol. iii. p. 104 of Munk’s ed. (Paris, 1866) 
and p. 371 of his translation. That Maimonides had actual accounts of the 
Harranians to go on appears by comparing the passage with that quoted 
above from an Arabic source in the Actes of the Leyden Congress ; but 
there may be a doubt whether his authorities attested blood-eating among 
the Harranians, or only supplied hints by which he interpreted the biblical 
evidence. 

3 For the mystic sacrifices of the heathen Semites, see above, p. 290 sqq. 
That these sacrifices were eaten with the blood appears from a comparison 
of Isa. Ixv. 4, Ixvi. 3, 17. All these passages refer to the same circle of 
rites, in which the victims chosen were such animals as were strictly 
taboo in ordinary life—the swine, the dog, the mouse and vermin (pv) 
generally. To such sacrifices, as we learn from lxvi. 17, a peculiar con- 
secrating and purifying efficacy was attached, which must be ascribed to 
the sacramental participation in the sacrosanct flesh. The flesh was eaten 
in the form of broth, which in lxv. 4 is called broth of piggilim, 7.e. of 
carrion, or flesh so killed as to retain the blood in it (Ezek. iv. 14; ef. Zech. 
ix. 7). We are to think, therefore, of a broth made with the blood, like 
the black broth of the Spartans, which seems also to have been originally a 
sacred food, reserved for warriors. The dog-sacrifice in lxvi. 3 is killed by 
breaking its neck, which agrees with this conclusion. Similarly in the 
mysteries of the Ainos, the sacred bear, which forms the sacrifice, is killed 


344 THE SPRINKLING LECT. IX. 


In the legal sacrifices of the Hebrews blood was never 
eaten, but in the covenant sacrifice of Ex. xxiv. it is 
sprinkled on the worshippers, which, as we have already 
learned by a comparison of the various forms of the blood 
covenant between men, has the same meaning. In later 
forms of sacrifice this feature disappears, and the com- 
munion between god and man, which is still the main 
thing in ordinary sacrifices, is expressed by burning part 
of the flesh on the altar, while the rest is cooked and 
eaten by the worshippers. But the application of the 
living blood to the worshipper is retained in certain special 
cases—at the consecration of priests and the purification 
of the leper '—whereit is proper to express in the strongest 
way the establishment of a special bond between the god 
and his servant,? or the restitution of one who has been 
cut off from religious fellowship with the deity and the 
community of his worshippers. In like manner, in the 
forms of sin-offering described in Lev. iv., it is at least 
required that the priest should dip his finger in the blood 
of the victim; and in this kind of ritual, as is expressly 
stated in Lev. x. 17, the priest acts as the representative 
of the sinner or bears his sin. Again, the blood of the 
Paschal lamb is applied to the doorposts, and so extends 
its efficacy to all within the dwelling—the “house” in all 
the Semitic languages standing for the household or family.’ 


without effusion of blood ; cf. the Indian rite, Strabo, xv. 1. 54 (Satapatha 
Brahmana, tr. Eggeling, ii. 190), and the Cappadocian, tbid. xv. 3. 15; 
also the Finnish sacrifice, Mannhardt, Ant. Wald- u. Feldkulte, p. 160, and 
other cases of the same kind, Journ. R. Geog. Soc. vol. iii. p. 283, vol. xl. 
p- 171. Spencer compares the rux<dé of Acts xv. 20. 

1 Lev. viii. 23, xiv. 6, 14. 

2 The relation between God and His priests rests on a covenant (Deut. 
xxxili. 9; Mal. ii. 4 sqq.). 

3 In modern Arabia ‘‘it is the custom to slaughter at the tent door and 
sprinkle the camels with the blood” (Blunt, Ned, i. 203 ; also Doughty, i. 499). 
This protects the camels from sickness. Also the live booty from a foray is 
sprinkled with sacrificial blood—presumably to incorporate it with the tribal 


LECT, IX. OF BLOOD 345 


The express provision that the flesh of the lamb must not 
be eaten raw seems to be directed against a practice similar 
to what Nilus describes; and so also the precept that the 
passover must be eaten in haste, in ordinary outdoor attire, 
and that no part of it must remain till the morning, be- 
comes intelligible if we regard it as having come down 
from a time when the living flesh was hastily devoured 
beside the altar before the sun rose. From all this it 
is apparent that the ritual described by Nilus is by no 
means an isolated invention of the religious fancy, in one 
of the most barbarous corners of the Semitic world, but 
a very typical embodiment of the main ideas that underlie 
the sacrifices of the Semites generally. Even in its 
details it probably comes nearer to the primitive form 
of Semitic worship than any other sacrifice of which we 
have a description. 

We may now take it as made out that, throughout the 
Semitic field, the fundamental idea of sacrifice is not that 
of a sacred tribute, but of communion between the god and 
his worshippers by joint participation in the living flesh 
and blood of a sacred victim. We see, however, that in 
the more advanced forms of ritual this idea becomes 
attenuated and tends to disappear, at least in the commoner 
kinds of sacrifice. When men cease to eat raw or living 
flesh, the blood, to the exclusion of the solid parts of the 
body, comes to be regarded as the vehicle of life and the 
true res sacramenit. And the nature of the sacrifice as a 
sacramental act is still further disguised when—for reasons 


cattle (ti7ad) ; Doughty, i. 452. An obscure reference to the smearing of a 
camel with blood is found in Azraci, p. 53,1. 18, Agh. xiii. 110, 1. 6, but the 
variations between the two texts make it hazardous to attempt an explanation. 
Cp. on the whole subject of blood-sprinkling, Kremer, Studien, p. 45 sqq. 

1 There is so much that is antique about the Paschal ritual, that one is 
tempted to think that the law of Ex. xii. 46, ‘‘ neither shall ye break a 
bone thereof,” may be a prohibition of some usage descended from the rule. 
given by Nilus, that the bones as well as the flesh must be consumed. 


346 ATONING LECT. IX. 


that will by and by appear more clearly—the sacramental 
blood is no longer drunk by the worshippers but only 
sprinkled on their persons, or finally finds no manward 
application at all, but is wholly poured out at the altar, 
so that it becomes the proper share of the deity, while the 
flesh is left to be eaten by man. This is the common 
form of Arabian sacrifice, and among the Hebrews the 
same form is attested by 1 Sam. xiv. 34. At this stage, 
at least among the Hebrews, the original sanctity of the 
life of domestic animals is still recognised in a modified 
form, inasmuch as it is held unlawful to use their flesh for 
food except in a sacrificial meal. But this rule is not 
strict enough to prevent flesh from becoming a familiar 
luxury. Sacrifices are multiplied on trivial occasions of 
religious gladness or social festivity, and the rite of eating 
at the sanctuary loses the character of an exceptional 
sacrament, and means no more than that men are invited 
to feast and be merry at the table of their god, or that no 
feast is complete in which the god has not his share. 

This stage in the evolution of ritual is represented by 
the worship of the Hebrew high places, or, beyond the 
Semitic field, by the religion of the agricultural communities 
of Greece. Historically, therefore, it coincides with the 
stage of religious development in which the deity is con- 
ceived as the king of his people and the lord of the land, 
and as such is habitually approached with gifts and tribute. 
It was the rule of antiquity, and still is the rule in the 
East, that the inferior must not present himself before his 
superior without a gift “to smooth his face” and make 
him gracious! The same phrase is habitually applied in 
the Old Testament to acts of sacrificial worship, and in Ex. 


19995 nbn, Prov. xix. 6; Ps. xlv. 13 (12), E.V., ‘‘intreat his favour.” 
In the Old Testament the phrase is much oftener used of acts of worship 
addressed to the deity, e.g. 1 Sam. xiii. 12, of the burnt-offering, 


LECT. IX, OFFERINGS 347 
xxiii, 15 the rule is formulated that no one shall appear 
before Jehovah empty-handed. ddapa Geots reife, dap’ 
atdovovs BactdXjas. 

As the commonest gifts in a simple agricultural state 
of society necessarily consisted of grain, fruits and cattle, 
which served to maintain the open hospitality that pre- 
vailed at the courts of kings and great chiefs, it was natural 
that animal sacrifices, as soon as their sacramental signifi- 
cance fell into the background, should be mainly regarded 
as gifts of homage presented at the court of the divine 
king, out of which he maintained a public table for his 
worshippers. In part they were summed up along with 
the cereal oblations of first-fruits as stated tributes, which 
everyone who desired to retain the favour of the god was 
expected to present at fixed seasons; in part they were 
special offerings with which the worshipper associated 
special petitions, or with which he approached the deity to 
present his excuses for a fault and request forgiveness. 
In the case where it is the business of the worshipper to 
make satisfaction for an offence, the gift may assume 
rather the character of a fine payable at the sanctuary ; 
for in the oldest free communities personal chastisement 
is reserved for slaves, and the offences of freemen are 
habitually wiped out by the payment of an amerce- 
ment.2, But in the older Hebrew custom the fines paid 
to the sanctuary do not appear to have taken the form 
of victims for sacrifice, but rather of payments in money 
to the priest, and the atoning effect ascribed to gifts 


1] Sam. xxvi. 19: ‘‘If Jehovah hath stirred thee up against me, let Him 
be gratified by an oblation.”’ 

2 The reason of this is that not even a chief can strike or mutilate a free- 
man without exposing himself to retaliation. This is still the case among 
the Bedouins, and so it was also in ancient Israel; see The Old Testament 
tn the Jewish Church, 2nd ed., p. 368. 

8 2 Kings xii. 16; cf. Amos ii, 8; Hos. iv. 8. 


348 HOLOCAUSTS AND LECT, IX. 


and sacrifices of all kinds seems simply to rest on the 
general principle that a gift smooths the face and pacifies 
anger. 

It has sometimes been supposed that this is the oldest 
form of the idea of atoning sacrifice, and that the elaborate 
piacula, which begin to take the chief place in the altar 
ritual of the Semites from the seventh century onwards, 
are all developed out of it. The chief argument that 
appears to support this view is that the whole burnt- 
offering, which is entirely made over to the deity, the 
worshipper retaining no part for his own use, is prominent 
among piacular sacrifices, and may even be regarded as 
the piacular sacrifice par excellence. In the later forms 
of Syrian heathenism the sacrificial meal practically 
disappears, and almost the whole altar service consists of 
piacular holocausts, and among the Jews the highest sin- 
offerings, whose blood was brought into the inner sanctuary, 
were wholly consumed, but not upon the altar,? while the 
flesh of other sin-offerings was at least withdrawn from the 
offerer and eaten by the priests. 

We have seen, however, that a different and profounder 
conception of atonement, as the creation of a life-bond 
between the worshipper and his god, appears in the most 
primitive type of Semitic sacrifices, and that traces of it 
can still be found in many parts of the later ritual. Forms 
of consecration ‘and atonement in which the blood of the 
victim is applied to the worshipper, or the blood of the 
worshipper conveyed to the symbol of godhead, occur in all 
stages of heathen religion, not only among the Semites but 
among the Greeks and other races; and even on @ priore 
grounds it seems probable that when the Northern Semites, 


1That the Harranians never ate sacrificial flesh seems to be an exaggera- 
tion, but one based on the prevalent character of their ritual ; see Chwolsohn 
ii. 89 sq. , 

2 Lev. vi. 23 (30), xvi. 27, iv. 11, 20. 


LECT. IX. SIN-OFFERINGS 349 


in the distress and terror produced by the political con- 
vulsions of the seventh century, began to cast about for . 
rites of extraordinary potency to conjure the anger of the 
gods, they were guided by the principle that ancient and 
half obsolete forms of ritual are more efficacious than the 
everyday practices of religion. 

Further, it is to be observed that in the Hebrew ritual 
both of the holocaust and of the sin-offering, the victim 
is slain at the altar “ before Jehovah,” a phrase which is 
wanting in the rule about ordinary sacrifices, and implies 
that the act of slaughter and the effusion of the blood 
beside the altar have a special significance, as in the 
ancient Arabian ritual. Moreover, in the sin - offering 
there is still—although in a very attenuated form—a 
trace of the manward application of the blood, when 
the priest dips his finger in it, and so applies it to the 
horns of the altar, instead of merely dashing it against 
the sides of the altar from a bowl;! and also, as regards 
the destination of the flesh, which is eaten by the priests 
in the holy place, it is clear from Lev. x. 17 that the 
flesh is given to the priests because they minister as the 
representatives of the sinful people, and that the act of 
eating it is an essential part of the ceremony, exactly as in 
the old ritual of communion. In fact the law expressly 
recognises that the flesh and blood of the sin-offering is a 
sanctifying medium of extraordinary potency; whosoever 
touches the flesh becomes holy, the garment on which the 
blood falls must be washed in a holy place, and even the 
vessel in which the flesh is sodden must be broken or 
scoured to remove the infection of its sanctity. That 
this is the reason why none but the priests are allowed 


1 Lev. iv. 6, 17, 34, compared with chap, iii. 2. [1 is to sprinkle or 
dash from the bowl, prj. 
2 Lev. vi. 20 (27). 


350 ’ HOLINESS OF LECT. IX 


to eat of it has been rightly discerned by Ewald;' the 
flesh, like the sacramental cup in the Roman Catholic 
Church, was too sacred to be touched by the laity. Thus © 
the Levitical sin-offering is essentially identical with the 
ancient sacrament of communion in a sacred life; only 
the communion is restricted to the priests, in accordance 
with the general principle of the priestly legislation, 
which surrounds the holy things of Israel by fence within 
fence, and makes all access to God pass through the 
mediation of the priesthood. 

I am not aware that anything quite parallel to the 
ordinary Hebrew sin- offering occurs among the other 
Semites; and indeed no other Semitic religion appears 
to have developed to the same extent the doctrine of 
the consuming holiness of God, and the consequent need 
for priestly intervention between the laity and the most 
holy things. But among the Romans the flesh of certain 
piacula was eaten by the priests, and in the piacular 
sacrifice of the Arval Brothers the ministrants also partook 
of the blood.2, Among the Greeks, again, piacular victims 
—like the highest forms of the Hebrew sin-offering— 
were not eaten at all, but either burned, or buried, or 
cast into the sea, or carried up into some desert mountain 
far from the foot of man.* It is commonly supposed 
that this was done because they were unclean, being 
laden with the sins of the guilty worshippers; but this 
explanation is excluded, not only by the analogy of the 
Hebrew sin-offering, which is a cdédesh codashim, or holy 
thing of the first class, but by various indications in Greek 
myth and ritual. For to the Greeks earth and sea are 
not impure but holy, and at Troezen a sacred laurel was 


1 Alterthiimer, 3rd ed., p. 87 sq. ; cf. the Syrian fish-sacrifices of whick 
only the priests partook, supra, p. 293. 

2 Marquardt, Sacralwesen, p. 185; Servius on Ain. ili. 231, 

* Hippocrates, ed. Littré, vi. 362. 


LECT HTX, SIN-OFFERINGS 351 
believed to have grown from the buried carcase of the 
victim used in the atonement for Orestes! Further, the 
favourite piacular victims were sacred animals, ¢g. the 
swine of Demeter and the dog of Hecate, and the 
essential part of the lustration consisted in the application 
of the blood of the offering to the guilty person, which is 
only intelligible if the victim was a holy sacrament. The 
blood was indeed too holy to be left in permanent contact 
with a man who was presently to return to common 
life, and therefore it was washed off again with water.” 
According to Porphyry, the man who touched a sacrifice 
designed to avert the anger of the gods was required 
to bathe and wash his clothes in running water before 
entering the city or his house? an ordinance which 
recurs in the case of such Hebrew sin-offerings as were 
not eaten, and of the red heifer whose ashes were used in 
lustrations. These were burnt “without the camp,” and 
both the ministrant priest and the man who disposed of 
the body had to bathe and wash their clothes exactly as 
in the Greek ritual. 

From all this it would appear that the sin-offering and 
other forms of piacula, including the holocaust, in which 
there is no sacrificial meal of which the sacrificer himself 
partakes, are yet lineally descended from the ancient ritual 
of sacrificial communion between the worshippers and 
their god, and at bottom rest on the same principle with 
those ordinary sacrifices in which the sacrificial meal played 
a chief part. But the development of this part of our 


1 Pausanias, ii. 31. 8. 

2 Apoll. Rhod., Argon. iv. 702 sqg. Cf. Schoemann, Gr. Alterth. II. 
v. 18. 

3 De Abst. ii. 44. 

4 Lev. xvi. 24, 28; Num. xix. 7-10. In the Fihrist, p. 319, 1. 12, after 
it has been explained that the sacrifices of the Harranians were not eaten 
but burned, it is added, ‘‘and the temple is not entered on that day.” 


352 SIN-OFFERINGS LECT. IX, 
subject must be reserved for another lecture, in which I 
will try to explain how the original form of sacrifice came 
to be differentiated into two distinct types of worship, and 
gave rise on the one hand to the “honorific” or ordinary, 
and on the other to the “ piacular” or exceptional sacrifices 
of later times. 


LECTURE X 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF SACRIFICIAL RITUAL— 
FIRE-SACRIFICES AND PIACULA 


WE have come to see that the sin-offering as well as the 
ordinary sacrificial meal is lineally descended from the 
primitive sacrifice of communion, in which the victim is a 
sacred animal that may not ordinarily be killed or used 
for food. But while in the one case the notion of the 
special holiness and inviolable character of the victim has 
gradually faded away, in the other this aspect of the 
sacrifice has been intensified, till even a religious participa- 
tion in the flesh is regarded as an impiety. Each of these 
opposite processes can to a certain extent be traced from 
stage to stage. As regards the sacrificial meal, we find, 
both in the case of Nilus’s Saracens and in that of African 
peoples, with whom the ox has a sanctity similar to that 
which the Arabs ascribed to the camel, that the sacra- 
mental flesh begins to be eaten as food under the pressure 
of necessity ; and when this is done, it also begins to be 
cooked like other food. Then we have the stage, repre- 
sented by the early Hebrew religion, in which domestic 
animals are freely eaten, but only on condition that they 
are presented as sacrifices at the altar and consumed in a 
sacred feast. And, finally, a stage is reached in which, as 
in Greece in the time of the Apostle Paul, sacrificial meat 
is freely sold in the shambles, or, as in Arabia before 
Mohammed, nothing more is required than that the beast 
23 


354 DEVELOPMENT OF LECT. X. 


designed for food shall be slain in the name of a god. In 
piacular sacrifices, on the other hand, we find, in a variety 
of expressions, a struggle between the feeling that the 
victim is too holy to be eaten or even touched, and the 
principle that its atoning efficacy depends on the participa- 
tion of the worshippers in its life, flesh and blood. In 
one rite the flesh may be eaten, or the blood drunk, but 
only by consecrated priests ; in another, the flesh is burned, 
but the blood is poured on the hands or body of the sinner ; 
in another, the lustration is effected with the ashes of the 
victim (the red heifer of the Jewish law); or, finally, it is 
enough that the worshipper should lay his hands on the 
head of the victim before its slaughter, and that then its 
life-blood should be presented at the altar. 

The reasons for the gradual degradation of ordinary 
sacrifice are not far to seek; they are to be found, on the 
one hand, in the general causes which make it impossible 
for men above the state of savagery to retain a literal faith 
in the consanguinity of animal kinds with gods and men, 
and, on the other hand, in the pressure of hunger, and 
afterwards in the taste for animal food, which in a settled 
country could not generally be gratified except by eating 
domestic animals. But it is not so easy to understand, 
Jirst, why in spite of these influences certain sacrifices re- 
tained their old sacrosanct character, and in many cases 
became so holy that men were forbidden to touch or eat 
of them at all; and, second, why it is to this particular 
class of sacrifices that a special piacular efficacy is assigned. 

In looking further into this matter, we must distinguish 
between the sacred domestic animals of pastoral tribes— 
the milk-givers, whose kinship with men rests on the 
principle of fosterage—and those other sacred animals of 
wild or half-domesticated kinds, such as the dove and the 
swine, which even in the later days of Semitic heathenism 


LECT, X. ATONING RITES 355 


were surrounded by strict taboos, and looked upon as in 
some sense partakers of a divine nature. The latter are 
undoubtedly the older class of sacred beings; for observa- 
tion of savage life in all parts of the world shows that the 
belief in sacred animals, akin to families of men, attains its 
highest development in tribes which have not yet learned 
to breed cattle and live on their milk. Totemism pure and 
simple has its home among races like the Australians 
and the North American Indians, and seems always to 
lose ground after the introduction of pastoral life. It 
would appear that the notion of kinship with milk-giving 
animals through fosterage has been one of the most 
powerful agencies in breaking up the old totem-religions, 
just as a systematic practice of adoption between men was 
a potent agency in breaking up the old exclusive system 
of clans. As the various totem clans began to breed 
cattle and live on their milk, they transferred to their 
herds the notions of sanctity and kinship which formerly 
belonged to species of wild animals, and thus the way was 
at once opened for the formation of religious and political 
communities larger than the old totem kins. In almost 
all ancient nations in the pastoral and agricultural stage, 
the chief associations of the great deities are with the 
milk-giving animals; and it is these animals, the ox, the 
sheep, the goat, or in Arabia the camel, that appear as 
victims in the public and national worship. But experi- 
ence shows that primitive religious beliefs are practically 
indestructible, except by the destruction of the race in 
which they are ingrained, and thus we find that the new 
ideas of what I may call pastoral religion overlaid the old 
notions, but did not extinguish them. For example, the 
Astarte of the Northern Semites is essentially a goddess 
of flocks and herds, whose symbol and sacred animal is 
the cow, or (among the sheep-rearing tribes of the Syro- 


356 TWO KINDS OF LECT. X. 


Arabian desert) the ewe. But this pastoral worship 
appears to have come on the top of certain older faiths, 
in which the goddess of one kindred of men was associated 
with fish, and that of another kindred with the dove. 
These creatures, accordingly, though no longer prominent 
in ritual, were still held sacred and surrounded by taboos, 
implying that they were of divine nature and akin to 
the goddess herself. The very fact that they were not 
regularly sacrificed, and therefore not regularly eaten even 
in religious feasts, tended to preserve their antique sanctity 
long after the sacrificial flesh of beeves and sheep had 
sunk almost to the rank of ordinary food; and thus, as 
we have seen in considering the case of the mystic sacri- 
fices of the Roman Empire, the rare and exceptional rites, 
in which the victim was chosen from a class of animals 
ordinarily tabooed as human food, retained even in later 
paganism a sacramental significance, almost absolutely 
identical with that which belonged to the oldest sacrifices. 
It was still felt that the victim was of a divine kind, and 
that, in partaking of its flesh and blood, the worshippers 
enjoyed a veritable communion with the divine life. That 
to such sacrifices there was ascribed a special cathartic 
and consecrating virtue requires no explanation, for how 
can the impurity of sin be better expelled than by a 
draught of sacred life? and how can man be brought 
nearer to his god than by physically absorbing a particle 
of the divine nature ? 

It is, however, to be noted that piacula of this kind, in 
which atonement is effected by the use of an exceptional 
victim of sacred kind, do not rise into prominence till the 
national religions of the Semites fall into decay. The 
public piacular sacrifices of the independent Semitic 
states appear, so far as our scanty information goes, to 

1 Supra, p. 310, 


LECY. xX. SACRED ANIMALS 357 


have been mainly drawn from the same kinds of domestic 
animals as supplied the ordinary sacrifices, except where 
an exceptional emergency demanded a human victim. 
Among the Hebrews, in particular, there is no trace of 
anything answering to the later mystic sacrifices up to the 
time of the captivity. At this epoch, when the national 
religion appeared to have utterly broken down, and the 
judgment of those who were not upheld by the faith of 
the prophets was that “Jehovah had forsaken His land,” ?} 
all manner of strange sacrifices of unclean creatures—the 
swine, the dog, the mouse and other vermin—began to 
become popular, and were deemed to have a peculiar 
purifying and consecrating power.” The creatures chosen 
for these sacrifices are such as were unclean in the first 
degree, and surrounded by strong taboos of the kind which 
in heathenism imply that the animal is regarded as divine; 
and in fact the sacrifices of vermin described in the Book 
of Isaiah have their counterpart in the contemporary 
worship of all kinds of vermin described by LEzekiel.® 
Both rites are evidently part of a single superstition, 
the sacrifice being a mystical communion in the body 
and blood of a divine animal. Here, therefore, we have 
a clear case of the re-emergence into the light of day of 
a cult of the most primitive totem type, which had been 
banished for centuries from public religion, but must have 
been kept alive in obscure circles of private or local 
superstition, and sprang up again on the ruins of the 
national faith, like some noxious weed in the courts of 
a deserted temple. But while the ritual and its inter- 
pretation are still quite primitive, the resuscitated totem 
mysteries have this great difference from their ancient 


1 Hizek, viii. 12. 
2 Isa. Ixv. 3 sqq., Ixvi. 3, 17 ; see above, p. 291 sq7., p. 343, note 3, 
* Ezek. viii. 10. 


358 MYSTIC LECT. X 


models, that they are no longer the exclusive possession 
of particular kins, but are practised, by men who desert 
the religion of their birth, as means of initiation into a 
new religious brotherhood, no longer based on natural 
kinship, but on mystical participation in the divine life held 
forth in the sacramental sacrifice. From this point of view 
the obscure rites described by the prophets have a vastly 
greater importance than has been commonly recognised ; 
they mark the first appearance in Semitic history of the 
tendency to found religious societies on voluntary associa- 
tion and mystic initiation, instead of natural kinship and 
nationality. This tendency was not confined to the 

Hebrews, nor did it reach its chief development among | 
them. The causes which produced a resuscitation of obsolete 
mysteries among the Jews were at work at the same period 
among all the Northern Semites; for everywhere the old 
national deities had shown themselves powerless to resist 
the gods of Assyria and Babylon. And among these 
nations the tendency to fall back for help on primitive 
superstitions was not held in check, as it was among the 
Hebrews, by the counter-influence of the Prophets and 
the Law. From this period, therefore, we may date with 
great probability the first rise of the mystical cults which 
played so large a part in the later developments of 
ancient paganism, and spread their influence over the 
whole Greco-Roman world. Most of these cults appear 
to have begun among the Northern Semites, or in the 
parts of Asia Minor that fell under the empire of the 
Assyrians and Babylonians. The leading feature that 
distinguishes them from the old public cults, with which 
they entered into competition, is that they were not based 
on the principle of nationality, but sought recruits from 
men of every race who were willing to accept initiation 
through the mystic sacraments; and in pursuance of this 


LECT. X. PIACULA 359 


object they carried on a missionary propaganda in all parts 
of the Roman Empire, in a way quite alien to the spirit 
of national religion. The nature of their sacramental sacri- 
fices, so far as it is known to us, indicates that they were 
of a like origin with the Hebrew superstitions described 
by Isaiah; they used strange victims, invoked the gods by 
animal names, and taught the initiated to acknowledge 
kinship with the same animals To pursue this subject 
further would carry us beyond the limits of our present 
task; for a full discussion of mystical sacrifices cannot 
be confined to the Semitic field. These sacrifices, as we 
have seen, lie aside from the main development of the 
national religions of the Semites, and they acquire public 
importance only after the collapse of the national systems. 
In later times they were much sought after, and were 
held to have a peculiar efficacy in purging away sin, and 
bringing man into living union with the gods. But 
their atoning efficacy proceeds on quite different lines 
from that of the recognised piacular rites of national 
religion. In the latter the sinner seeks reconciliation 
with the national god whom he has offended, but in 
mystic religion he takes refuge from the divine wrath 
by incorporating himself in a new religious community. 
Something of the same kind takes place in more primitive 
society, when an outlaw, who has been banished from the 
social and religious fellowship of his clan for shedding 
kindred blood, is received by the covenant of adoption 
into another clan. Here also the act of adoption, which 
is a religious as well as a civil rite, is in so far an act 
of atonement, that the outlaw has again a god to receive 
his worship and his prayers; but he is not reconciled to 
the god of his former worship, for it is only in a some- 
what advanced stage of polytheism that acceptance by one 
1 Porph., De Abst. iv. 16, compared with Fihrist, p. 326, 1. 25 sq. 


360 ATONEMENT BY LECT. X. 


god puts a man right with the gods as a whole. Among 
the Greeks, where the gods formed a sort of family circle, 
and were accessible to one another’s influence, the outlaw, 
like Orestes, wanders about in exile, till he can find a god 
willing to receive him and act as his sponsor with the 
other deities; and here, therefore, as in the mystical rites 
of the Semites, the ceremony of purification from blood- 
shed is essentially a ceremony of initiation into the cult 
of some god who, like the Apollo of Troezen, makes it 
his business to receive suppliants. But among the older 
Semites there was no kinship or friendship between the 
gods of adjacent tribes or nations, and there was no way 
of reconciliation with the national god through the media- 
tion of a third party, so that all atoning sacrifices were 
necessarily offered to the national god himself, and drawn, 
like ordinary sacrifices, from the class of domestic animals 
appropriated to his worship. 

In the oldest stage of pastoral religion, when the tribal 
herd possessed inviolate sanctity, and every sheep or camel 
—according as the tribe consisted of shepherds or camel- 
herds—was regarded as a kinsman, there was no occasion 
and no place for a special class of atoning sacrifices. The 
relations between the god and his worshippers were 
naturally as good and intimate as possible, for they were 
based on the strongest of all ties, the tie of kinship. 
To secure that this natural good understanding should 
continue unimpaired, it was only necessary that the 
congenital bond of kinship should not wear out, but 
continue strong and fresh. And this was provided for 
by periodical sacrifices, of the type described by Nilus, 
in which a particle of the sacred life of the tribe was 
distributed, between the god and his worshippers, in the 
sacramental flesh and blood of: an animal of the holy 
stock of the clan. To make the sacrifice effective, it 


LECT, xX. FOREIGN RITES 361 


was only necessary that the victim should be _ perfect 
and without fault—a point which is strongly insisted 
upon in all ancient sacrifice—ze., that the sacred life 
should be completely and normally embodied in it. In 
the later ages of antiquity there was a very general 
belief —the origin of which will be explained as we 
proceed—that in strictness the oldest rituals demanded 
a human victim, and that animal sacrifices were sub- 
stitutes for the life of a man. But in the oldest times 
there could be no reason for thinking a man’s life 
better than that of a camel or a sheep as a vehicle of 
sacramental communion; indeed, if we may judge from 
modern examples of that primitive habit of thought 
which les at the root of Semitic sacrifice, the animal 
life would probably be deemed purer and more perfect 
than that of man. . 

On the other hand, there is every reason to think that 
even at this early stage certain impious crimes, notably 
murder within the kin, were expiated by the death of the 
offender. But the death of such a criminal cannot with 
any justice be called a sacrifice. Its object was simply 
to eliminate the impious person from the society whose 
sanctity he had violated, and outlawry was accepted as 
an alternative to execution. 

As time went on, the idea of the full kinship of men 
with their cattle began to break down. The Saracens of 
Nilus killed and ate their camels in time of hunger, but 
we may be sure that they would not in similar circum- 
stances have eaten one another. Thus even in a society 
where the flesh of the tribal camel was not ordinary food, 
and where private slaughter was forbidden, a camel’s life 
was no longer as sacred as that of a man; it had begun to 
be recognised that human life, or rather the life of a tribes- 
man, was a thing of unique sanctity. At the same time 


362 HUMAN LECT. X. 


the old forms of sacrifice were retained, and the tradition 
of their old meaning cannot have been lost, for the ritual 
forms were too plainly significant to be misinterpreted. 
In short, the life of a camel, which no longer had the full 
value of a tribesman’s life for ordinary purposes, was 
treated as a tribesman’s life when it was presented at the 
altar; so that here we have already a beginning of the idea 
that the victim gud victim possesses a sacrosanct character 
which does not belong to it merely in virtue of its natural 
kind. But now also, let it be noted, it is expressly attested 
that the sacrificial camel is regarded as the substitute for 
a human victim. The favourite victims of the Saracens 
were young and beautiful captives, but if these were not 
to be had they contented themselves with a white and 
faultless camel. As to the veracity of this account there 
is no question: Nilus’s own son, Theodulus, when a captive 
in the hands of these barbarians, escaped being sacrificed 
only by the accident that, on the appointed morning, his 
captors did not awake till the sun rose, and the lawful hour 
for the rite was past; and there are well-authenticated 
instances of the sacrifice of captives to Al-Ozza by the 
Lakhmite king of Al-Hira at least a century later.* 

It is true that in these cases the victims are aliens 
and not tribesmen, as in strictness the sense of the ritual 
requires; but the older Semites, when they had recourse to 
human sacrifice, were more strictly logical, and held with 
rigour to the fundamental principle that the life of the 
victim must be a kindred life* The modification accepted 

1 The sacrifice of choice captives occurs also among the Carthaginians 
(Diod. xx. 65), and perhaps a trace of the same thing appears among the 
Hebrews in the slaying of Agag ‘‘before the Lorp, at the sanctuary of Gilgal” 
(1 Sam. xv. 33). 

2 Noldeke’s Tabari, p. 171 (Procop., Pers. ii. 28; Land, Anecd. ili. 247) ; 
Isaac of Antioch, i. 220. 


3 See, for the Hebrews, Gen. xxii. ; 2 Kings xxi. 6; Micah vi. 7: for the 
Moabites, 2 Kings iii. 27: for the Pheenicians, Philo Byblius in Fr. Hist, 


LECT. x. SACRIFICE 363 


by the Saracens was one for which there was the strongest 
motive, and accordingly all over the world we find cases 
of human sacrifice in which an alien is substituted for a 
tribesman. This was not done in accordance with any 
change in the meaning of the ritual, for originally the 
substitution was felt to be a fraud on the deity; thus 
Diodorus tells us that the Carthaginians, in a time of 
trouble, felt that their god was angry because slave boys 
had been privily substituted for the children of their best 
families; and elsewhere we find that it is considered 
necessary to make believe that the victim is a tribesman, 
or even, as in the human sacrifices of the Mexicans, to 
dress and treat him as the representative of the deity 
to whom he is to be offered. Perhaps something of 
this kind was in the mind of Nilus’s Saracens when 
they drank with prisoners destined to death, and so 
admitted them to boon fellowship. 


Gr, iii. 570 (Eus., Pr. Hv. 156 D); Porph., De Abst. ii. 56: for the Cartha- 
ginians, Porph., ibid. ii. 27; Diodorus, xx. 14; Plutarch, De Superst. 18: 
for the Syrians, Dea Syr. lviii.; Lampridius, Vita Heliog. 8, ‘‘ pueri nobiles 
et decori. .. patrimi et matrimi”: for the Babylonians, 2 Kings xvii. 31. For 
the Arabs the well-known story of “Abd al-Mottalib’s vow (B. Hish. p. 97), 
though of doubtful authenticity, may probably be accepted as based on 
actual custom. Another example of a vow to sacrifice a son is given in 
Malik’s Mowatta, Tunis ed., p. 176 (Kremer, Stud. z. vergl. Culturg. p. 44). 

1 Nilus, p. 66, where, however, the slaughter is not formally a sacrifice. 
The narrative represents the offer of drink as mere mockery, but it is 
- difficult to reconcile this with known Arabian custom; see above, p. 270. 
A more serious attempt to adopt Theodulus into the Saracen community 
seems to have been made after his providential escape from death ; he was 
invited to eat unclean things and sport with the women (p. 117). The 
combination is significant, and as «sapopayeiv must refer to the eating of 
idolatrous meats, presumably camel’s flesh,—which Symeon Stylites forbade 
to his Arab converts,—the question arises whether yuvaiti rpooraifev has not 
also a reference to some religious practice, and whether Wellhausen’, p. 40, 
has not been too hasty in supposing that the orgies of the Arabian Venus 
renounced by the converts just mentioned are mere rhetorical orgies ; ef. 
Kinship, p. 301. 

It has been suggested to me by an eminent scholar that the sacrifice of 
choice captives after a victory may be a form of naci'a and properly a thank- 
offering from the spoil ; cf. the slaying of Agag. This is not impossible, for 


364 HUMAN LECT. X. 


From a purely abstract point of view it seems plausible 
enough that the Saracens, who accepted an alien as a 
substitute for a tribesman, might also accept a camel as 
a substitute for a man. The plan of substituting an 
offermg which can be more readily procured or better 
spared, for the more costly victim which traditional 
ritual demands, was largely applied throughout antiquity, 
and belongs to the general system of make-believe by 
which early nations, while entirely governed by regard 
for precedents, habitually get over difficulties in the 
strict carrying out of traditional rules. If a Roman 
rite called for a stag as victim, and a stag could not 
be had, a sheep was substituted and feigned to be a stag 
(cervaria ovis), and so forth. The thing was really a fraud, 
but one to which the gods were polite enough to shut 
their eyes rather than see the whole ceremony fail. But 
in the particular case before us it is difficult to believe 
that the camel was substituted for a man, and ultimately 
for a tribesman. In that case the ritual of the camel- 
sacrifice would have been copied from human sacrifice, 
but in reality this was not so. The camel was eaten, 
but the human victim was burned, after the blood had 
been poured out as a libation,) and there can be no 


different ideas often find their embodiment in identical ceremonies; but the 
case of Jephthah’s daughter and the express testimony of Diodorus appear to 
me to weigh strongly against such a view. 

1 This appears from what we read of the preparations for the sacrifice of 
Theodulus, among which are mentioned frankincense (the accompaniment of 
fire-offerings) and a bowl for the libation, p. 110; and, at p. 113, Theodulus 
prays: ‘‘ Let not my blood be made a libation to demons, nor let unclean 
spirits be made glad with the sweet smoke of my flesh.” See Wellhausén?, 
p. 118, who conjectures that in Arabia human sacrifices were generally 
burned, citing Yaciit, iv. 425, who tells that every clan of Rabi'a gave a son 
to the god Moharric, ‘‘ the burner,” at Salman (in ‘Irac, on the pilgrim road 
from Cufa). Noldeke, in ZDMG. xli. 712, doubts whether the reference is 
to human sacrifice ; for Yacut (7.e. Ibn al-Kalbi) presently cites examples 
of men of different clans called ‘‘sons of Moharric,” which may imply that 
the sons were not sacrificed, but consecrated as children of the god. This, 


LECT. X. SACRIFICE 365 


question that the former is the more primitive rite. I 
apprehend, therefore, that human sacrifice is not more 
ancient than the sacrifice of sacred animals, and that 
the prevalent belief of ancient heathenism, that animal 
victims are an imperfect substitute for a human life, 
arose by a false inference from traditional forms of 
ritual that had ceased to be understood. In the oldest 
rituals the victim’s life is manifestly treated as sacred, 
and in some rites, as we have seen in our examination 
of the Attic Buphonia, the idea that the slaughter is 
really a murder, ze. a shedding of kindred blood, was 
expressed down to quite a late date. When the full 
kinship of animals with men was no longer recognised 
in ordinary life, all this became unintelligible, and was 
explained by the doctrine that at the altar the victim 
took the place of a man. 

This doctrine appears all over the ancient world in 
connection with atoning sacrifices, and indeed the false 
inference on which it rests was one that could not fail 
to be drawn wherever the old forms of sacrifice had been 
shaped at a time when cattle were revered as kindred 


however, is so peculiar an institution for Arabia that it still remains probable 
that the consecration was a substitute for sacrifice. At Salman, in the 
neighbourhood of Al-Hira, we are in the region of the human sacrifices of the 
Lakhmite kings. And these were probably burnt-offerings ; cf. the legend 
of the holocaust of one hundred prisoners by ‘Amr b. Hind, Kamil, p. 97 ; 
Agh. xix. 129. Hence this king is said to have been called Moharric, or, 
according to another tradition, because he burned Yemama (Mofaddal 
al-Dabbi, Amthal, p. 68) ; but, as Noldeke observes (Ghassan. Fiirsten [1887], 
p. 7), Moharric without the article is hardly a mere epithet (acab), and I 
apprehend that the Lakhmite family was called ‘‘the family of Moharric” 
after their god, presumably Lucifer, the morning star, who afterwards 
became feminine as al-‘Ozza (supra, p. 56, note 3). The Ghassanid princes 
of the house of Jafna were also called ‘‘the family of Moharric,” Ibn Cot. 
p. 314; Ibn Dor. p. 259, and here the tradition is that their ancestor was 
the first Arab who burned his enemies in theirencampment. This, however, 
is obviously a form of hérem, and must, I take it, bea religious act. For 
the ‘‘family” (@/) of a god, as meaning his worshippers, see Kinship, p. 
44. 


366 HUMAN LECT. X, 


beings. And this appears to have been the case in the 
beginnings of every pastoral society. Accordingly, to 
cite but a few instances, the notion that animal sacrifice 
is accepted in lieu of an older sacrifice of the life of a 
man appears among the Hebrews, in the story of Isaac’s 
sacrifice, among the Pheenicians,? among the Egyptians, 
where the victim was marked with a seal bearing the 
image of a man bound, and with a sword at his throat’ 
and also among the Greeks, the Romans, and many other 
nations.4 As soon, however, as it came to be held that 
cattle were merely substitutes, and that the full sense of 
the sacrifice was not brought out without an actual human 
victim, it was naturally inferred that the original form 
of offering was more potent, and was indicated on all 
occasions of special gravity. Wherever we find the 
doctrine of substitution of animal life for that of man, 
we find also examples of actual human sacrifice, some- 
times confined to seasons of extreme peril, and sometimes 
practised periodically at solemn annual rites.° 


1 Gen. xxii. 13; cf. Lev. xvii. 11. 2 Porph., De Abst. iv. 15. 
$Plut., Js. e¢ Os. xxxi. According to Wiedemann, Herodots Zweites 
* Buch, p. 182, these symbols are simply the hieroglyphic determinant of the 
word sema, ‘‘slay.” 

4 See the examples in Porph., De Abst. ii. 54sqq., and for the Romans, 
Ovid, Fasti, vi. 162. We have had before us Greek rites where the victim 
is disguised as a man ; but conversely human sacrifices are often dressed up 
as animals, or said to represent animals: an example, from the worship at 
Hierapolis-Bambyce, is found in Dea Syria, lviii., where fathers sacrificing 
their children say that they are not children but beeves. 

5 Examples of human sacrifices, many of which subsisted within the 
Roman Empire down to the time of Hadrian, are collected by Porphyry, 
ut supra, on whom Eusebius, Prep, Hv. iv. 16, Laws Const. xiii. 7, depends. 
See also Clem. Alex., Coh. ad Gentes, p. 27 (p. 36, Potter); cf. Hermann, 
Gr. Alth. ii. § 27. In what follows I confine myself to the Semites ; it may 
therefore be noted that, in antiquity generally, human victims were buried, 
burned, or cast into the sea or into a river (cf. Mannhardt’s essay on the 
Lityerses legend). Yet indications survive that they were originally 
sacrifices of communion, and as such were tasted by the worshippers: 
notably in the most famous case of all, the human sacrifice offered in 

* Arcadia to Zeus Lycweus—the wolf-god—where a fragment of the exta was 


LECT. X. SACRIFICE 367 


I apprehend that this is the point from which the 
special development of piacular sacrifices, and the distinc- 
tion between them and ordinary sacrifices, takes its start. 
It was impossible that the sacrificial customs should con- 
tinue unmodified where the victim was held to represent 
a man and a tribesman, for even savages commonly refuse 
to eat their own kinsfolk, and to growing civilisation the 
idea that the gods had ordained meals of human flesh, or 
of flesh that was as sacred as that of a man, was too 
repulsive to be long retained. But when I say “repulsive,” 
I put the matter rather in the light in which it appears to 
us, than in that wherein it presented itself to the first men 
who had scruples about cannibalism. Primarily the horror 
of eating human flesh was no doubt superstitious; it was 
felt to be dangerous to eat so sacrosanct a thing, even with 
all the precautions of religious ceremonial. Accordingly, 
in human sacrifices, and also in such other offerings as 
continued to be performed with a ritual simulating human 
sacrifice, the sacrificial meal tended to fall out of use; 
while, on the other hand, where the sacrificial meal was 
retained, the tendency was to drop such features in the 
ritual as suggested the disgusting idea of cannibalism.} 
And so the apparent paradox is explained, that precisely in 
those sacrifices in which the victim most fully retained its 
original theanthropic character, and was therefore most 
efficacious as a vehicle of atonement, the primitive idea of 


placed among the portions of sacrificial flesh derived from other victims 
that were offered along with the human sacrifice, and the man who tasted 
it was believed to become a were-wolf (Plato, Rep. viii. 15, p. 565 D; 
Pausanias, viii. 2). 

Of the human sacrifices of rude peoples those of the Mexicans are perhaps 
the most instructive, for in them the theanthropic character of the victim 
comes out most clearly. 

1 Of course neither tendency was consistently carried out in every detail 
of ritual ; there remains enough that is common to honorific and piacular 
sacrifice to enable us to trace them back to a common source, 


368 HUMAN LECT. & 


atonement by communion in the sacred flesh and blood 
was most completely disguised. The modifications in the 
form of ritual that ensued when sacrifices of a certain 
class were no longer eaten, can be best observed by 
taking the case of actual human sacrifice and noting 
how other sacrifices of equivalent significance follow its 
model. 

Whether the custom of actually eating the flesh survived 
in historical times in any case of human sacrifice is more 
than doubtful, and even in the case of animal piacula— 
apart from those of mystic type, in which the idea of 
initiation into a new religion was involved—the sacrificial 
meal is generally wanting or confined to the priests. The 
custom of drinking the blood, or at least of sprinkling it 
on the worshippers, may have been kept up longer; there 
is some probability that it was observed in the human 
sacrifices of Nilus’s Saracens;?2 and the common Arabian 


1 According to Mohammedan accounts, the Harranians in the Middle Ages 
annually sacrificed an infant, and, boiling down its flesh, baked it into cakes, 
of which only freeborn men were allowed to partake (/thrist, p. 323, 1. 6 sqq. ; 
cf. Chwolsohn’s Excwrsus on Human Sacrifice, vol. ii. p. 142). Butin regard 
to the secret mysteries of a forbidden religion, such as Syrian heathenism 
was in Arabian times, it is always doubtful how far we can trust a hostile 
narrator, who, even if he did not merely reproduce popular fictions, might 
easily take for a real human sacrifice what was only the mystic offering of a 
theanthropic animal. The new-born infant corresponds to the Arabian fara’, 
offered while its flesh was still like glue, and to the Hebrew piaculum of a 
sucking lamb in 1 Sam. vii. 9. 

? The reason for thinking this is that on the Arabian mode of sacrifice a 
bowl was not required to convey the blood to the deity, while it would be 
necessary if the blood was drunk by the worshippers or sprinkled upon them. 
It is true that the narrative speaks also of the preparation of a libation,— 
whether of water or of wine does not appear, —but this in the Arabian ritual 
can hardly be more than a vehicle for the more potent blood, just as the 
blood was mixed with water in Greek sacrifices to heroes. Water as a 
vehicle for sacrificial ashes appears in the Hebrew ritual of the red heifer 
(Num. xix. 9), and is prescribed as a vehicle for the blood of lustration in 
Lev. xiv. 5 sg. In the legends cited in the next note we find the notion 
that if the blood of a human victim touches the ground, vengeance will be 
taken for it. That the drinking of human blood, e.g. from an enemy slain 
in battle, was a Saracen practice, is attested by Ammianus and Procopius 


LECT. xX. SACRIFICE 369 


_—_-— 


belief that the blood of kings, and perhaps also of other men 
of noble descent, is a cure for hydrophobia and demoniacal 
possession, seems to be a reminiscence of blood-drinking 
in connection with human sacrifice, for the Greeks in like 
manner, who ascribed epilepsy to demoniacal possession, 


sought to cure it by piacular offerings and purifications 
with blood.? 

When the sacrosanct victim ceased to be eaten, it was 
necessary to find some other way of disposing of its flesh. 
It will be remembered that, in the sacrificial meals of 
Nilus’s Saracens, it was a point of religion that the whole 
carcase should be consumed before the sun rose; the victim 
was so holy that no part of it could be treated as mere 
waste. The problem of disposing of the sacred carcase 
was in fact analogous to that which occurs whenever a 
kinsman dies. Here, too, the point is to find a way of 
dealing with the body consistent with the respect due to 
the dead—a respect which does not rest on sentimental 
grounds, but on the belief that the corpse is taboo, a source 


(see Kinship, p. 296 sqq.); and the anecdote given by Wellh. p. 126, from 
Agh. xii. 144, where a husband, unable to save his wife from the enemy, 
kills her, anoints himself with her blood, and fights till he is slain, illustrates 
the significance which the Arabs attached to human blood as a vehicle of 
communion. 

1 Hippocrates, ed. Littré, vi. 362. The evidence for this Arabian super- 
stition is collected by Freytag in his notes to the Hamasa, ii. 583, and by 
We.! 142, 7 162. It consists in poetical and proverbial allusions, to which 
may be added a verse in Mas‘idi, iii. 193, and in a legend from the mythical 
story of Queen Zabba (Agh. xiv. 74; Tabari, i. 760; Maidani, i. 205 sqq.), 
where a king is slain by opening the veins of his arms, and the blood, to be 
used as a magical medicine, is gathered in a bowl. Not a drop must fall 
on the ground, otherwise there will be blood-revenge for it. I cannot but 
suspect that the legend is based on an old form of sacrifice applied to captive 
chiefs (cf. the case of Agag) ; it is described as the habitual way of killing 
kings ; cf. Agh. xv. 75. 4, where ‘Abd Yaghith is killed by opening his 
veins. The rule that not a drop of the blood must fall on the ground appears 
also in Caffre sacrifice ; Maclean, Caffre Laws, p. 81. According to later 
authorities, cited in the 7@j al-‘Aris (i. 8. 181 of the old edition), it was 
enough for this cure to draw a drop of blood frum the finger of a noble, and 
drink it mixed with water. 


24 


370 DISPOSAL OF LECT. X 
of very dangerous supernatural influences of an infectious 
kind. In later times this infectiousness is expressed as 
uncleanness; but in the primitive taboo, as we know, 
sanctity and uncleanness meet and are indistinguishable. 
Now, as regards the kindred dead generally, we find a great 
range of funeral customs, all directed to make sure that 
the corpse is properly disposed of, and can no longer be a 
source of danger to the living, but rather of blessing! In 
certain cases it is the duty of the survivors to eat up their 
dead, just as in Nilus’s sacrifice. This was the use of the 
Issedones, according to Herodotus (iv. 26). At other times 
the dead are thrown outside the kraal, to be eaten by wild 
beasts (Masai land), or are deposited in a desert place 
which men must not approach; but more commonly the 
body is buried or burned. All these practices reappear in 
the case of such sacrifices as may not be eaten. Mere 
exposure on the soil of the sanctuary was perhaps the use 
in certain Arabian cults; but this, it is plain, could not 
suffice unless the sacred enclosure was an adyton forbidden 
to the foot of man. Hence at Duma the annual human 
victim is buried at the foot of the altar idol,? and elsewhere, 
perhaps, the corpse is hung up between earth and heaven 
before the deity.* Or else the sacrosanct flesh is carried 

1 This subject has been fully handled by Mr. J. G. Frazer in Journ, 
Anthrop. Inst. xv. 64 sqg., to which I refer for details, I think Mr. Frazer 
goes too far in supposing that mere fear of ghosts rules in all these observ- 
ances. Not seldom we find also a desire for continued fellowship with 
the dead, under such conditions as make the fellowship free from danger. 
In the language of physics, sanctity is a polar force, it both attracts and 
repels. 

2 Supra, p. 225 sqq. 

3 Porph., De Abst. ii. 56. In old Arabia little girls were often buried 
alive by their fathers, apparently as sacrifices to the goddesses ; see Kinship, 
p. 291. A similar form of human sacrifice probably lies at the root of the 
legend about the tombs of the lovers whom Semiramis buried alive (Syncellus, 
i. 119, from John of Antioch), for though these lovers are gods, all myths of 


the death of gods seem to be derived from sacrifices of theanthropic victims. 
4 Deut. xxi, 21; cf. 1 Sam. xxxi. 10. The execution of criminals con- 


LECT. X. SACRIFICIAL FLESH S74 


away into a desert place in the mountains, as was done in 
the Greek piacula of which Hippocrates speaks, or is 
simply flung down (a precipice) from the vestibule of the 
temple, as was the use of Hierapolis! Among the Hebrews, 
on the same principle, the heifer offered in atonement 
for an untraced murder was sacrificed by breaking (or, 
perhaps, severing) its neck in a barren ravine.” 

Most commonly, however, human sacrifices, and in 
general all such sacrifices as were not eaten, were burned ; 
and this usage is found not only among the Hebrews and 
Pheenicians, with whom fire-sacrifices were common, but 
among the Arabs, who seem to have admitted the fire- 
offering in no other case. In the more advanced rituals 
the use of fire corresponds with the conception of the gods 
as subtle beings, moving in the air, whose proper nourish- 
ment is the fragrant smoke of the burning flesh, so that 
the burnt-offering, like the fat of the vitals in ordinary 
victims, is the food of the gods, and falls under the head of 
sacrificial gifts. But in the Levitical ritual this explana- 
tion is sedulously excluded in the case of the sin-offering ; 
the fat is burned on the altar, but the rest of the flesh, so 
far as it is not eaten by the priests, is burned outside the 
camp, t.e. outside the walls of Jerusalem, so that in fact 
the burning is merely an additional precaution added to 


stantly assumes sacrificial forms, for the tribesman’s life is sacred even if he 
be a criminal, and he must not be killed in acommon way. This principle 
is finally extended to all religious executions, in which, as the Hebrews and 
Moabites say, the victim is devoted, as a herem, to the god (Stele of Mesha, 
1.17). In one peculiar sacrifice at Hierapolis (Dea Syr. xlix.) the victims 
were suspended alive from trees, and the trees were then set on fire. The 
fire is perhaps a later addition, and the original rite may have consisted in 
suspension alone. The story of a human victim hung up in the temple 
at Carrhe by the Emperor Julian (Theod., H. JZ. iii. 21), and the similar 
stories in the Syriac Julian-romances (ed. Hoffm. p. 247, etc.), are too 
apocryphal to be used, though they probably reflect some obsolete popular 
superstition. 
1 Dea Syria, \viii. 4 Deut. xxi. 4, 


372 HUMAN LECT. X. 
the older rule that the sacred flesh must not be left 
exposed to human contact. Now the Levitical sin-offering 
is only a special development of the old piacular holocaust, 
and thus the question at once suggests itself whether in its 
first origin the holocaust was a subtle way of conveying a 
gift of food to the god; or whether rather the victim was 
burned, because it was too sacred to be eaten and yet must 
not be left undisposed of. In the case of the Arabian 
holocaust, which is confined to human victims, this is 
certainly the easiest explanation; and even among the 
Hebrews and their neighbours it would seem that human 
sacrifices were not ordinarily burned on the altar or even 
within the precincts of the sanctuary, but rather outside 
the city. It is plain from various passages of the prophets, 
that the sacrifices of children among the Jews before the 
captivity, which are commonly known as sacrifices to 
Moloch, were regarded by the worshippers as oblations to 
Jehovah, under the title of king,! yet they were not pre- 
sented at the temple, but consumed outside the town at 
the Tophet in the ravine below the temple.? From Isa. 
xxx. 33 it appears that Tophet means a pyre, such as is 
prepared for a king. But the Hebrews themselves did not 
burn their dead, unless in very exceptional cases,? and 


1 Jer. vii. 31, xix. 5, xxxii. 35; Ezek. xxiii. 39; Mic. vi. 7. The form 
Moloch (LXX.), or rather Molech (Heb.), is nothing but Melech, ‘‘ king,” 
read with the vowels of bosheth, ‘‘shameful thing”; see Hoffmann in 
Stade’s ZATW. iii. (1883) p. 124. In Jer. xix. 5 delete 5ya5 myby 
with LXX. 

2 The valley of Hinnom is the Tyropceon ; see Hnc. Bib., arts. “ Jeru- 
salem ”’ and “ Hinnom.”’ 

3 Saul’s body was burned (1 Sam. xxxi. 12), possibly to save it from the 
risk of exhumation by the Philistines, but perhaps rather with a religious 
intention, and almost as an act of worship, since his bones were buried 
under the sacred tamarisk at Jabesh. In Amos. vi. 10 the victims of a 
plague are burned, which is to be understood by comparing Lev. xx. 14, 
xxi. 9; Amos ii. 1, and remembering that plague was a special mark of 
divine wrath (2 Sam. xxiv.), so that its victims might well be regarded as 
intensely taboo. 


LECT. X, HOLOCAUSTS 873 


burial was equally the rule among their Phenician neigh- 
bours, as is plain from researches in their cemeteries,} 
and apparently among all the Semites. Thus, when the 
prophet describes the deep and wide pyre “prepared for 
the king,” he does not draw his figure from ordinary life, 
nor is it conceivable that he is thinking of the human 
sacrifices in the valley of Hinnom, a reference which would 
bring an utterly discordant strain into the imagery. What 
he does refer to is a rite well known to Semitic religion, 
which was practised at Tarsus down to the time of Dio 
Chrysostom, and the memory of which survives in the 
Greek legend of Heracles-Melcarth,? in the story of 
Sardanapalus, and in the myth of Queen Dido. At Tarsus 
there was an annual feast at which a very fair pyre was 
erected, and the local Heracles or Baal burned on it in 
effigy.2 This annual commemoration of the death of the 
god in fire must have its origin in an older rite, in which 
the victim was not a mere effigy but a theanthropic sacri- 
fice, 7.e. an actual man or sacred animal, whose life, according 
to the antique conception now familiar to us, was an 
embodiment of the divine-human life. 

The significance of the death of the god in Semitic 
religion is a subject on which I must not enter in this 
connection ; we are here concerned with it only in so far 
as the details, scenic or mythical, of the death of the god 
throw light on the ritual of human sacrifice. And for 


1This is true also of Carthage; Tissot, La Prov. d'Afrique, i. 612; 
Justin, xix. 1. But at Hadrumetum in the second century B.c. the dead 
were burned ; see Berger in Revue archéol., Juillet--Décembre, 1889, p. 375. 

2 For the burning of the Tyrian Heracles, cf. Clem. Recog. x. 24, where 
we read that the sepulchre of the god was shown ‘‘apud Tyrum, ubi igni 
crematus est.” It is a plausible conjecture, very generally accepted, that in 
Herod. vii. 167 the legend of the self-immolation of Melcarth has got mixed 
up with the story of the death of Hamilcar. 

3 See O. Miiller, ‘‘Sandon und Sardanapal,” in Rhein. Mus., Ser. i, 
Bd. iii. 


oe HUMAN LECT. xX. 


a 


this purpose it is well to cite also the legend of the death 
of Dido as it is related by Timezeus,! where the pyre is 
erected outside the walls of the palace, ze. of the temple 
of the goddess, and she leaps into it from the height of 
the edifice. According to Justin, the pyre stood “at the 
end of the town”; in fact the sanctuary of Ccelestis, which 
seems to represent the temple of Dido, stood a little way 
outside the citadel or original city of Carthage, on lower 
ground, and, at the beginning of the fourth century of our 
era, was surrounded by a thorny jungle, which the popular 
imagination pictured as inhabited by asps and dragons, the 
guardians of the sanctuary.” It can hardly be doubted 
that the spot at which legend placed the self-sacrifice of 
Dido to her husband Sicharbas was that at which the later 
Carthaginian human sacrifices were performed.® 

We have therefore a series of examples all pointing 
to human sacrifice beneath and outside the city. At 
Hierapolis the victims are cast down from the temple, but 
we do not read that they are burned; at Jerusalem they 
are burned in the ravine below the temple, but not cast 
down. At Carthage the two rites meet, the sacrifice is 
outside the city and outside the walls of the temple; but 
the divine victim leaps into the pyre, and later victims, as 
Diodorus tells us, were allowed to roll into a fiery pit 
from a sort of scaffold in the shape of an image of the god 
with outstretched arms. In this last shape of the rite the 
object plainly is to free the worshippers from the guilt of 


1 Fr, Hist. Gr. i. 197; cf. Justin, xviii. 6. On Dido as identical with 
Tanith (Tent), 1 daiuwv ris Kepyndoves, see the ingenious conjectures of G. 
Hoffmann, Phen. Inschr. p. 32 sq. 

* Tissot, i. 658. Silius Ital., i. 81 sgq., also describes the temple of Dida 
as enclosed in a thick grove, and surrounded by awful mystery. 

‘3 The name Sichar-bas, Sya-75p, ‘*commemoration of Baal,” is not a 
divine title, but is to be understood from Ex. xx. 24. 93D is the Pheenician 
form of Heb. 753}. 

* Diod. xx. 14. 


LECT. xX, HOLOCAUSTS 375 


bloodshed ; the child was delivered alive to the god, and 
he committed it to the flames. For the same reason, at 
the so-called sacrifice of the pyre at Hierapolis, the holo- 
causts were burned alive,! and so was the Harranian sacri- 
fice of a bull to the planet Saturn described by Dimashci.? 
This last sacrifice is the lineal descendant of the older 
human sacrifices of which we have been speaking; for 
the Carthaginian Baal or Moloch was identified with Saturn, 
and at Hierapolis the sacrificed children are called oxen. 
But im the more ancient Hebrew rite the children offered 
to Moloch were slaughtered before they were burned.? 
And that the burning is secondary, and was not the 
original substance of the rite, appears also from the use of 
Hierapolis, where the sacrifice is simply flung from the 
temple. So, too, although Dido in Timeus flings herself 
into the fire, there are other forms of the legend of the 
sacrifice of a Semite goddess, in which she simply casts 
herself down into water.* 

When the burning came to be the essence of the rite, 
the spot outside the city where it was performed might 
naturally become itself a sanctuary, though it is plain 
from the descriptions of the temple of Dido that the 
sanctuary was of a very peculiar and awful kind, and 
separated from contact with man in a way not usual in 
the shrines of ordinary worship. And when this is so, 
the deity of this awful sanctuary naturally comes to be 
regarded as a separate divinity, rejoicing in a cult which 


1 Dea Syria, xlix. 2 Ed. Mehren, p. 40 (Fr. trans. p. 42). 

3 Ezek. xvi. 20, xxiii. 39; Gen. xxii. 10. The inscriptions in Gesenius, 
Mon. Phen. p. 448 sq., which have sometimes been cited in this connection, 
are now known to have nothing to do with human sacrifice. 

4The Semiramis legend at Hierapolis and Ascalon; the legend of the 
death of Astarte at Aphaca (Meliton), which must be identified with the 
falling of the star into the water at the annual feast, just as in another 
legend Aphrodite after the death of Adonis throws herself from the 
Leucadian promontory (Ptol., Nov. Hist. vil. p. 198, West.). 


376 HUMAN LECT. X 
the other gods abhor. But originally, we see, the human 
sacrifice is offered to the ordinary god of the community, 
only 1c is not consumed on the altar in the sanctuary, but 
cast down into a ravine outside, or burned outside. This 
rule appears to be universal, and I may note one or two 
other instances that confirm it. Mesha burns his son as a 
holocaust to Chemosh, not at the temple of Chemosh, but 
on the wall of his beleaguered city ;' being under blockade, 
he could not go outside the wall. Again, at Amathus the 
human sacrifices offered to Jupiter Hospes were sacrificed 
“before the gates,’? and here the Jupiter Hospes of the 
Roman narrator can be none other than the Amathusian 
Heracles or Malika, whose name, preserved by Hesychius, 
identifies him with the Tyrian Melcarth. Or, again, 
Malalas? tells us that the 22nd of May was kept as the 
anniversary of a virgin sacrificed at the foundation of 
Antioch, at sunrise, “ half-way between the city and the 
river,” and afterwards worshipped like Dido as the Fortune 
of the town. ! | 

All this is so closely parallel to the burning of the flesh 
of the Hebrew sin-offerings outside the camp, that it seems 
hardly doubtful that originally, as in the Hebrew sin- 
offering, the true sacrifice, 7.e. the shedding of the blood, 
took place at the temple, and the burning was a distinct 
act. An intermediate stage is exhibited in the sacrifice 
of the red heifer, where the whole ceremony takes place 
outside the camp, but the blood is sprinkled in the direction 
of the sanctuary (Num. xix. 4). And in support of this 
view let me press one more point that has come out in 
our evidence. The human holocaust is not burned on an 
altar, but on a pyre or fire-pit constructed for the occasion. 
This appears both in the myths of Dido and Heracles and 


12 Kings iii. 27. 2 Ovid, Metaph. x. 224; cf. Movers, i. 408 sg. 
2 P. 200 of the Bonn ed. 


LECT. X, HOLOCAUSTS 377 
in actual usage. At Tarsus a very fair pyre is erected 
yearly for the burning of Heracles; in the Carthaginian 
sacrifice of boys the victims fall into a pit of flame, and 
in the Harranian ox-sacrifice the victim is fastened to a 
grating placed over a vault filled with burning fuel; finally, 
Isaiah’s Tophet is a broad and deep excavation filled with 
wood exactly like the fiery trench in which, according to 
Arabic tradition, the victims of ‘Amr b. Hind and the 
martyrs of Nejran found their end.’ All these arrange- 
ments are totally unlike the old Semitic altar or sacred 
stone, and are mere developments of the primitive fireplace, 
made by scooping a hollow in the ground? It appears, 
then, that in the ritual of human sacrifice, and therefore 
by necessary inference in the ritual of the holocaust gene- 
rally, the burning was originally no integral part of the 
ceremony, and did not take place on the altar or even 
within the sanctuary, but in a place apart, away from the 
habitations of man. For human sacrifices and for solemn 


1 Aghani, xix. 129; Ibn Hisham, p. 24 (Tab. i. 925; Sara, 85, 4 sqq.). 

2 Itseems to me that N5N is properly an Aramaic name for a fireplace, or 
for the framework set on the fire to support the victim, which appears in the 
Harranian sacrifice and, in a modified form, at Carthage. For we are not to 
think of the brazen Saturn as a shapely statue, but as a development of the 
dogs of a primitive fireplace. I figure it to myself as a pillar or cone with a 
rude head and arms, something like the divine symbol so often figured on 
Carthaginian Tanith cippi. Now the name for the stones on which a pot 


is set, and then for any stand or tripod set upon a fire, is in Arabic &s25| 


Othfiya, in Syriac Lal, Tfaya, of which we might, according to known 
analogies, have a variant tfath. The corresponding Hebrew word is 
nbwss (for skfath), which means an ashpit or dunghill, but primarily must 


have denoted the fireplace, since the denonominative verb Nbw is ‘‘ to set on 
a pot.” In nomad life the fireplace of one day is the ash-heap of the next. 
Now, at the time when the word MN first appears in Hebrew, the chief 
foreign influence in Judean religion was that of Damascus (2 Kings xvi.), 
and there is therefore no improbability in the hypothesis that nan is an 
Aramaic word. The pronunciation ¢ofeth is quite precarious, for LXX. has 
capeé, and the Massorets seem to have given the loathsome thing the points 
of bosheth. 


378 ALTARS OF LECT, X 


piacula this rule continued to be observed even to a late 
date, but for ordinary animal holocausts the custom of 
burning the flesh in the court of the sanctuary must have 
established itself pretty early. Thus, as regards the 
Hebrews, both the early narrators of the Pentateuch (the 
Jahvist and the Elohist) presuppose the custom of burning 
holocausts and other sacrifices on the altar, so that the 
fusion is already complete between the sacred stone to 
receive the blood, and the hearth on which the flesh was 
burned. But the oldest history still preserves traces of 
a different custom. The burnt-sacrifices of Gideon and 
Manoah are not offered on an altar, but on the bare rock ;? 
and even at the opening of Solomon’s temple the fire- 
offerings were not burned on the altar, but in the middle 
of the court in front of the naos, as was done many cen- 
turies later at Hierapolis on the day of the Pyre-sacrifice. 
It is true that in 1 Kings vui. 64 this is said to have 
been done only because “the brazen altar that was before 
the Lord” was not large enough for so great an occasion ; 
but, according to 1 Kings ix. 25, the holocausts and ordinary 
sacrifices which Solomon offered three times in the year 
were in like manner offered (not on the brazen altar, but) 
on an altar “ built” by the king, ze. a structure of stones; 
and indeed we have no unambiguous notice of a permanent 
altar of burnt-offering in the temple of Jerusalem till the 
reign of Ahaz, who had one constructed on the model of 
the altar of Damascus. This altar, and not the brazen 
altar, was again the model for the altar of the second 
temple, which was of stone, not of brass, and it is plain 
from the narrative of 2 Kings xvi. especially in the form 
of the text which has been preserved by the Septuagint, 


1 Gen. viii. 20, xxii. 9. Ex. xx. 24 makes the holocaust be slaughtered 
on the altar, but does not expressly say that it was burned on it. 

2 Judg. vi. 20, xiii. 19; Judg. vi. 26, the more modern story of Gideon’s 
offering, gives the modern ritual. 


LECT. X, BURNT-OFFERING 379 
that Ahaz’s innovation was not merely the introduction of 
a new architectural pattern, but involved a modification of 
the whole ritual. 

We may now pass on to the case of ordinary fire- 
offerings, in which only the fat of the vitals is consumed 
on the altar. It is easy to see that when men began to 
shrink from the eating of sacrificial flesh, they would not 
necessarily at once take refuge in entire abstinence. The 
alternative was to abstain from partaking of those parts 
in which the sacred life especially centred. Accordingly 
we find that in ordinary Hebrew sacrifices the whole blood 
is poured out at the altar as a thing too sacred to be 
eaten.” Again, the head is by many nations regarded as 
a special seat of the soul, and so, in Egyptian sacrifice, the 
head was not eaten, but thrown into the Nile? while 
among the Iranians the head of the victim was dedicated 
to Haoma, that the immortal part of the animal might 
return to him. But a not less important seat of life, 
according to Semitic ideas, lay in the viscera, especially in 
the kidneys and the liver, which in the Semitic dialects 
are continually named as the seats of emotion, or more 
broadly in the fat of the omentum and the organs that 
lie in and near it. Now it is precisely this part of the 

1See Additional Note K, The Altar at Jerusalem. I may add that, in 
1 Kings xviii., Elijah’s altar does not seem to be a raised structure, but 
simply a circle marked out by twelve standing stones and a trench. 

2 Among the Hottentots blood is allowed to men but not to women; 
the female sex being among savages excluded from many holy privileges. 
Similarly the flesh of the Hebrew sin-offering must be eaten only by males 
(Lev. vi. 22 [29]), and among the Caffres the head, breast and heart are 
man’s part (Lichtenstein, p. 451). 

3 Herod. ii. 39. The objection to eating the head is very widely spread ; 
e.g., in Bavaria, as late as the fifteenth century (Usener, Religionsgesch. 
Untersuchungen, ii. 84). Some Arabs objected to eating the heart (Wusten- 


feld, Reg. p. 407). 
4The Arabic Khilb (Heb. abn, Syr. helbai) primarily denotes the 


omentum or midriff, but includes the fat or suet connected therewith ; sea 
Lev. iii. 8. An Arab says of a woman who has inspired him with passion, 


380 SACREDNESS OF LECT. X. 


victim, the fat of the omentum with the kidneys and 
the lobe of the liver, which the Hebrews were for- 
bidden to eat, and, in the case of sacrifice, burned on 
the altar. 

The ideas connected with the kidney fat and its appur- 
tenances may be illustrated by the usages of primitive 
peoples in modern times. When the Australians kill an 
enemy in blood revenge, “ they always abstract the kidney 
fat, and also take off a piece of the skin of the thigh” [or 
a piece of the flank] “These are carried home as trophies. 
. .. The caul fat is carefully kept by the assassin, and 
used to lubricate himself”; he thinks, we are told, that 
thus the strength of the victim enters into him.2 When 
the Basutos offer a sacrifice to heal the sick, as soon as 
the victim is dead, “they hasten to take the epiploon or 
intestinal covering, which is considered the most sacred 


“she has overturned my heart and torn my midriff’ (Lane, p. 782). Sa 
in Ps. xvii. 10 the sense is not “they have closed their fat (unfeeling) 
heart,” but ‘‘they have shut up their midriff,” and thus are insensible to pity. 
From this complex of fat parts the fat of the kidneys is particularly selected 
by the Arabs, and by most savages, as the special seat of life. One says, 
“I found him with his kidney fat,” meaning I found him brisk and all 
alive (Lane, p. 1513). In Egypt, according to Burckhardt (Ar. Prov. No. 
301), ‘‘ when a sheep is killed by a private person, some of the bystanders 
often take away the kidneys, or at least the fat that incloses them, as due 
to the public from him who slaughters the sheep.” This, I take it, is a relic 
of old sacrificial usage; what used to be given to the god is now given in 
charity. For Greek ideas about the kidney fat see Mr. Platt’s note on JJiad, 
g. 204, in Journ. Phil. xix. (1890) 46. 

1 The thigh is a seat of life and especially of procreative power, as 
appears very clearly in the idiom of the Semites (Kinship, p. 38). From 
this may be explained the sacredness of the nervus ischiadicus among the 
Hebrews (Gen. xxxii. 33), and similar superstitions among other nations. 
Is this also the reason why the ‘‘fat thigh bones” are an altar-portion 
among the Greeks? The nature of the lameness produced by injury to the 


sinew of the thigh socket is explained by the Arabic lexx., s.v. re yl ; 


the man can only walk on the tips of his toes. This seems to have been a 
common affection, for poetical metaphors are taken from it. 

2 Brough Smyth, ii. 289, i. 102 ; ef. Lumholtz, 4mong Cannibals (Lond. 
1889), p. 272. 


LECT. X. KIDNEY FAT 381 


part, and put it round the patient’s neck. ... The gall 
is then poured on the head of the patient. After a sacri- 
fice the gall bladder is invariably fastened to the hair of 
the individual for whom the victim has been slain, and 
becomes a sign of purification.” } 

The importance attached by various nations to these 
vital parts of the body is very ancient, and extends to 
regions where sacrifice by fire is unknown. The point 
of view from which we are to regard the reluctance to eat 
of them is that, being more vital, they are more holy 
than other parts, and therefore at once more potent and 
more dangerous. All sacrificial flesh is charged with an 
awful virtue, and all sacra are dangerous to the unclean 
or to those who are not duly prepared; but these are so 
holy and so awful that they are not eaten at all, but dealt 
with in special ways, and in particular are used as powerful 
charms.” 

We see from the case of the Basuto sacrifice that it is 
by no means true that all that man does not eat must be 
given to the god, and the same thing appears in other 
examples. The Hebrews pour out the blood at the altar, 
but the Greeks use it for lustration and the old Arabs as 
a cure for madness. The Persians restore the head and 
with it the life to Haoma, while the Tauri, according to 
Herodotus (iv. 103), in their human sacrifices, bury the 
body or cast it down from the cliff on which the temple 
stands, but fix the head on a pole above their houses as 
a sacred guardian. Among the Semites, too, the magical 
use of a dried head had great vogue. This sort of charm 


1 Casalis, p. 250. 

2 This may be illustrated by the case of the blood of sacrificial victims. 
Among the Greeks bull’s blood was regarded as a poison ; but for this belicf 
there is no physiological basis: the danger lay in its sacred nature. But 
conversely it was used under divine direction as a medicine; Alian, NV. A. 
xi. 35. On blood as a medicine see also Pliny, H. N. xxviii. 43, xxvi. 8 ; 
and Adams's Paulus Aigineta, iii. 25 sq. 


382 USE OF THE LECT. X, 


is mentioned by Jacob of Edessa, and hares’ heads were 
worn as amulets by Arab women.2 So, too, when we find 
bones, and especially dead men’s bones, used as charms, 
we must think primarily of the bones of sacrifices. 
Nilus’s Saracens at least broke up the bones and ate the 
marrow, but the solid osseous tissue must from the first 
have defied most teeth unless it was pounded, and so it 
was particularly likely to be kept and used as a charm. 
Of course the sacred bones may have been often buried, 
and when fire was introduced they were likely to be burned, 
as is the rule with the Caffres* As the sacrifices of the 
Caffres are not fire-sacrifices, it is clear that in this case 
the bones are burned to dispose of the holy substance, not 
to provide food for the gods. But even when the bones 
or the whole carease of a sacrosanct victim are burned, the 
sacred virtue is not necessarily destroyed. The ashes of 
sacrifice are used, like the blood, for lustrations of various 
kinds, as we see in the case of the red heifer among the 
Hebrews ; and in agricultural religions such ashes are very 
commonly used to give fertility to the land. That is, the 
sacred elements, after they cease to be eaten, are still used 
in varied forms as a means of communicating the divine 
life and life-giving or protective virtue to the worshippers, 
their houses, their lands, and all things connected with them. 

In the later fire-rituals, the fat of the victim, with its 
blood, is quite specially the altar food of the gods. But 
between the practice which this view represents and the 


1 Qu. 43 ; see more examples in Kayser’s notes, p. 142, and in a paper by 
Jahn, Ber. d. stéichs-Ges. d. Wiss. 1854, p. 48. For the magical human head, 
of which we read so much in the latest forms of Semitic heathenism, see 
Chwolsohn, ii. 150 sgg., and the Actes of the Leyden Congress, ii. 365 sg. 

2 Diw. Hudh. clxxx. 9; ZDMG. xxxix. 329. 

3 Examples, infra, Additional Note B, p. 448. The very dung of cattle 
was a charm in Syria (Jacob of Edessa, Qu. 42), to which many parallels exist, 
not only in Africa, but among the Aryans of India. 

4 Maclean, p. 81. 


LECT. xX. KIDNEY FAT 383 


primitive practice, in which the whole body was eaten, we 
must, I think, in accordance with what has just been said, 
insert an intermediate stage, which can still be seen and 
studied in the usage of primitive peoples. Among the 
Damaras the fat of particular animals “is supposed to 
possess certain virtues, and is carefully collected and kept 
in vessels of a particular kind. A small portion dissolved 
in water is given to persons who return home safely after 
a lengthened absence; . . . the chief makes use of it as 
an unguent for his body.”1 So too “dried flesh and fat” 
are used as amulets by the Namaquas.2 Among the 
Bechuanas lubrication with grease is part of the ceremony 
of admission of girls into womanhood, and among the 
Hottentots young men on their initiation into manhood are 
daubed with fat and soot.? Grease is the usual unguent 
all over Africa, and from these examples we see that its 
use is not merely hygienic, but has a sacred meaning. 
Indeed, the use of various kinds of fat, especially human 
fat, as a charm, is common all over the world, and we learn 
from the Australian superstition, quoted above, that the 
reason of this is that the fat, as a special seat of life, is a 
vehicle of the living virtue of the being from which it 
is taken. Now we have seen, in speaking of the use of 
unguents in Semitic religion,* that this particular medium 
has in some way an equivalent value to blood, for which it 
may be substituted in the covenant ceremony, and also in 
the ceremony of bedaubing the sacred stone as an act of 
homage. If, now, we remember that the oldest unguents 
are animal fats, and that vegetable oil was unknown to 
the Semitic nomads,° we are plainly led to the conclusion 

10, J. Andersson, Lake Ngami, p. 223. 

2 Ibid. p. 330. The dried flesh reminds us of the Arabian custom of 
drying strips of sacrificial flesh on the days of Mina (Wellh. p. 80). 


3 Ibid. p. 465; Kolben, i. 121. 4 Supra, p. 233. 
° Frankel, Fremdwérter, p. 147. | 


384 BURNING LECT, X. 


that unction is primarily an application of the sacrificial fat, 
with its living virtues, to the persons of the worshippers. 
On this view the anointing of kings, and the use of 
unguents on visiting the sanctuary, are at once intelligible. 
The agricultural Semites anointed themselves with olive 
oil, and burned the sacrificial fat on the altar. This could 
be done without any fundamental modification of the old 
type of sacred stone or altar pillar, simply by making a 
hollow on the top to receive the grease; and there is some 
reason to think that fire-altars of this simple kind, which 
in certain Phoenician types are developed into altar candle- 
sticks, are older than the broad platform-altar proper for 
receiving a burnt-offering.2 But there are evidences even 
in the Old Testament that it was only gradually that the 
burning of the fat came to be an integral part of the altar 
ritual: In 1 Sam. ii, 15 we find a controversy between 
the priests and the people on this very topic. The 
worshippers maintain that the priest has no claim to his 
fee of flesh till the fat is burned ; but the priests assert their 
right to have a share of raw flesh at once. It is assumed 
in the argument that if the priests held back their claim 
till they had burned the fat, the flesh would be already 
cooked—so the worshippers at least did not wait to see 
the fat burned. And probably the priests had precedent 
on their side, for the old law of Ex. xxii. 18 only 
requires that the fat of a festal sacrifice shall be burned 
before daybreak—the sacrifice itself having taken place in 
the evening. 
I fear that these details may seem tedious, but the 
cumulative evidence which they afford that the burning of 
1 The use of unguents by witches when they desire to transform them- 
selves into animal shape,—as we find it, for example, in Apuleius’s novel, — 
belongs to the same region of superstition, and to that most primitive form 


of the superstition which turns on the kinship of men with animals, 
2 See below, Additional Note K, 


| 


LECT. X. OF THE FAT 385 


the flesh or fat held quite a secondary place in ancient 
sacrifice, and was originally no integral part of the oblation 
at the altar, is of the greatest importance for the history of 
sacrificial ideas. They show how impossible it is to regard 
animal sacrifices as primarily consisting in a gift of food to 
the gods, and how long it was before this notion superseded 
the original notion of communion between men and their 
gods in the life of the sacrifice. 

I do not suppose that it is possible, on the basis of the 
evidences that have come before us, to reconstruct from 
step to step the whole history of the development of fire- 
sacrifices. But we can at least see in a general way how the 
chief modifications of sacrificial ritual and idea came in. 

Originally neither the flesh nor the life of the victim 
could be regarded as a gift or tribute—ze. as something 
which belonged to the worshipper, and of which he 
divested himself in order to make it over to the object of 
his worship. It is probable that sacrifice is older than 
the idea of private property, and it is certain that its 
beginnings go back to a time when the owner of a sheep, 
an ox, or a camel had no right to dispose of its life 
according to his own good pleasure. Such an animal 
could only be slain in order that its life might be distri- 
buted between all the kin and the kindred god. At this 
stage the details of the ritual are shaped by the rule that 
no part of the life must be lost, and that therefore the 
whole body, which is the vehicle of the life, must be 
distributed and used up in the holy ritual. In the first 
instance, therefore, everything must be eaten up, and eaten 
while it is still alive—fresh and raw. Gradually this 
rule is modified, partly because it is difficult to insist, 
in the face of growing civilisation, on the rule that 
even bones, skin and offal must be devoured, and partly 
because there is increasing reluctance to partake of the 

25 


386 ORIGIN OF LECT. X 


holy life. This reluctance again is connected with the 
growth of the distinction between degrees of holiness. 
Not every man is holy enough to partake of the most 
sacred sacraments without danger. What is safe for a 
consecrated chief or priest is not safe for the mass of the 
people. Or even it is better that the most sacred parts of 
the victim should not be eaten at all; the blood and the 
fat are medicines too powerful to be taken internally, but 
they may be sprinkled or daubed on the worshippers, while 
the sacrificial meal is confined to the parts of the flesh in 
which the sacred life is less intensely present. Or, finally, 
it is most seemly and most safe to withdraw the holiest 
things from man’s use altogether, to pour out the whole 
blood at the altar, and to burn the fat. All this applies 
to ordinary sacrifices, in which the gradual concentration 
of the holiness of the victim in its fat and blood tends to 
make the rest of the flesh appear less and less holy, till 
ultimately it becomes almost a common thing. But, on 
special occasions, where the old ritual is naturally observed 
with antique rigidity, and where, therefore, the victim is 
treated at the altar as if it were a tribesman, the feeling 
of sacred horror against too close an approach to things 
most holy extends to the whole flesh, and develops itself, 
especially in connection with actual human sacrifice, into 
the rule that no part of such victims may be eaten, but 
that the whole must be reverently burned. 

If we may generalise from the case of Arabia, where 
the holocaust was confined to human victims and the fat 
of ordinary sacrifices was not burned, it would appear that 
it was human sacrifice that first gave rise to the use of fire 
as a safe means of disposing of the bodies of the holiest 
victims. From this practice that of burning the fat in 
common sacrifices may very well have been derived. But 
the evidence is not sufficient to justify a positive con- 


= — 


- - ——— ) ey Se es 


LECT, X. FIRE-SACRIFICE 387 


clusion on the matter, and it is quite possible that the use 
of fire began among the Northern Semites in connection 
with ordinary sacrifices, simply as a means of dealing with 
such parts of the victim as were not or could not be eaten, 
and yet were too holy to be left undisposed of. The 
Hebrew ritual of ordinary sacrifices is careful to prescribe 
that what is not eaten on the first or second day shall be 
burned! This is evidently a mere softening of the old 
rule that the flesh of the victim must be consumed without 
delay, while it is still alive and quivering, into the rule 
that it must not be allowed to putrefy and decompose ; 
and this again, since the close connection between putre-. 
faction and fermentation is patent even to the unscientific 
observer, seems also to be the principle on which ferments 
are excluded from the altar. The use of fire in sacrifice, 
as the most complete and thorough means of avoiding 
putrefaction in whatever part of the victim cannot or may 
not be eaten, must have suggested itself so naturally 
wherever fire was known, that no other reason is necessary 
to explain its wide adoption. The burial of the sacrificial 
flesh, of which we have found one or two examples, does 
not appear to have met with so much favour, and indeed 
was not so satisfactory from the point of view indicated by 
the rules of Hebrew ritual.? 

The use of fire in this sense does not involve any 
fundamental modification in the ideas connected with 
sacrifice. The critical point in the development is when 
the fat of ordinary victims, or still more, the whole flesh 
of the holocaust, is burned within the sanctuary or on the 
altar, and is regarded as being thus made over to the deity. 
This point claims to be examined more fully, and must be 
reserved for consideration at our next meeting. 

‘| Lev. vii, 15 sqq. 2 See Additional Note L, High Places. 


LECTURE Xl 


SACRIFICIAL GIFTS AND PIACULAR SACRIFICES—-THE SPECIAL 
IDEAS INVOLVED IN THE LATTER 


In connection with the later Semitic sacrifices, fire is 
employed for two purposes, apparently quite independent 
of one another. Its ordinary use is upon the altar, where 
it serves to sublimate, and so to convey to deities of an 
ethereal nature, gifts of solid flesh, which are regarded as 
the food of the gods. But in certain Hebrew piacula the 
sacrificial flesh is burned without the camp, and is not 
regarded as the food of the gods. The parts of the victim 
which in the highest form of piacula are burned outside 
the camp are the same which in lower forms of the sin- 
offering were eaten by the priests as representatives of the 
worshippers, or which in ordinary sacrifices would have 
been eaten by the worshippers themselves. Here, there- 
fore, the fire seems to play the same part that is assigned 
to it under the rule that, if an ordinary sacrifice is not 
eaten up within one or two days, the remnant must be 
burned. All sacrificial flesh is holy, and must be dealt 
with according to fixed ritual rules, one of which is that 
it must not be allowed to putrefy. Ordinary sacrificial 
flesh may be either eaten or burned, but sin-offerings are 
too holy to be eaten except by the priests, and in certain 


cases are too holy to be eaten even by them, and therefore’ 


must be burned, not as a way of conveying them to the 
deity, but simply as a way of fitly disposing of them. 
388 


i a eel ie 


ea -— . SS eee ee _ 


LECT. Xt. ORIGIN OF BURNT-OFFERINGS 389 


It is commonly supposed that the first use of fire was 
upon the altar, and that the burning outside the camp is 
a later invention, expressing the idea that, in the case of a 
sacrifice for sin, the deity does not desire a material gift, 
but only the death of the offender. The ritual of the 
Hebrew sin-offering lends itself to such an interpretation 
readily enough, but it is impossible to believe that its 
origin is to be explained on any such view. If the sin- 
offering is merely a symbolical representation of a penal 
execution, why is the flesh of the victim holy in the first 
degree ? and why are the blood and fat offered upon the 
altar? But it is unnecessary to press these minor objections 
to the common view, which is refuted more conclusively 
by a series of facts that have come before us in the course 
of the last lecture. There is a variety of evidence that 
fire was applied to sacrifices, or to parts of sacrifices, as an 
alternative to their consumption by the worshippers, befora 
the altar became a hearth, and before it came to be thought 
that what was burned was conveyed, as etherealised food, 
to the deity. The Hebrew piacula that were burned out- 
side the camp represent an older form of ritual than the 
holocaust on the altar, and the thing that really needs 
explanation is the origin of the latter. 

Originally all sacrifices were eaten up by the 
worshippers. By and by certain portions of ordinary 
sacrifices, and the whole flesh of extraordinary sacrifices, 
ceased to be eaten. What was not eaten was burned, 
and in process of time it came to be burned on the altar 
and regarded as made over to the god. Exactly the same 
change took place with the sacrificial blood, except that 
here there is no use of fire. In the oldest sacrifices the 
blood was drunk by the worshippers, and after it ceased 
to be drunk it was all poured out at the altar. The 
tendency evidently was to convey directly to the godhead 


390 GIFT-THEORY LECT, XI. 


every portion of a sacrifice that was not consumed by the 
worshipper ; but how did this tendency arise ? 

I daresay that some of you will be inclined to say that 
I am making a difficulty of a matter that needs no explana- 
tion. Is it not obvious that a sacrifice is a consecrated 
thing, that consecrated things belong to the god, and that 
the altar is their proper place? No doubt this seems to 
be obvious, but it is precisely the things that seem obvious 
which in a subject like ours require the most careful 
scrutiny. You say that consecrated things belong to the 
god, but we saw long ago that this is not the primitive 
idea of holiness. A holy thing is taboo, ze. man’s contact 
with it and use of it are subject to certain restrictions, but 
this idea does not in early society rest on the belief that it 
is the property of the gods, Again, you say that a sacrifice 
is a consecrated thing, but what do you mean by this? If 
you mean that the victim became holy by being selected 
for sacrifice and presented at the altar, you have not 
correctly apprehended the nature of the oldest rites. For 
in them the victim was naturally holy, not in virtue of its 
sacrificial destination, but because it was an animal of holy 
kind. So long as the natural holiness of certain animal 
species was a living element in popular faith, it was by no 
means obvious that holy things belong to the god, and 
should find their ultimate destination at the altar. 

In later heathenism the conception of holy kinds and 
the old ideas of taboo generally had become obsolete, and 
the ritual observances founded upon them were no longer 
understood. And, on the other hand, the comparatively 
modern idea of property had taken shape, and began to 
play a leading part both in religion and in social life. The 
victim was no longer a naturally sacred thing, over which 
man had very limited rights, and which he was required to 
treat as a useful friend rather than a chattel, but was 


LECT XI. OF SACRIFICE 391 
drawn from the absolute property of the worshipper, of 
which he had a right to dispose as he pleased. Before its 
presentation the victim was a common thing, and it was 
only by being selected for sacrifice that it became holy. 
If, therefore, by presenting his sheep or ox at the altar, the 
owner lost the right to eat or sell its flesh, the explanation 
could no longer be sought in any other way than by the 
assumption that he had surrendered his right of property 
to another party, viz. to the god. Consecration was inter- 
preted to mean a gift of man’s property to the god, and 
everything that was withdrawn by consecration from the 
free use of man was conceived to have changed its owner. 
The blood and fat of ordinary sacrifices, or the whole flesh 
in the case of the holocaust, were withdrawn from human 
use; it was held, therefore, that they had become the 
property of the god, and were reserved for his use. This 
being so, it was inevitable that the burning of the flesh 
and fat should come to be regarded as a method of convey- 
ing them to the god; and as soon as this conclusion was 
drawn, the way was open for the introduction of the 
modern practice, in which the burning took place on the 
altar. The transformation of the altar into the hearth, on 
which the sacrificial flesh was consumed, marks the final 
establishment of a new view of holiness, based on the 
doctrine of property, in which the inviolability of holy 
things is no longer made to rest on their intrinsic super- 
natural quality, but upon their appropriation to the use 
and service of the gods. The success of this new view is 
not surprising, for in every department of early society 
we find that as soon as the notion of property, and of 
transfers of property from one person to another, gets firm 
footing, it begins to swallow up all earlier formulas for the 
relations of persons and things. But the adaptation of 
old institutions to new ideas can seldom be effected without 


392 GIFT-THEORY LECT, Xl 
leaving internal contradictions between the old and the 
new, which ultimately bring about the complete dissolu- 
tion of the incongruous system. The new wine bursts 
the old bottles, and the new patch tears the old garment 
asunder. 

In the case of ordinary sacrifices, the theory that holy 
things are the property of the deity, and that the consecra- 
tion of things naturally common implies a gift from man 
to his god, was carried out with little difficulty. It was 
understood that at the altar the whole victim is made 
over to the deity and accepted by him, but that the 
main part of the fiesh is returned to the worshipper, to 
be eaten sacrificially as a holy thing at the table of the 
god. This explanation went well enough with the con- 
ception of the deity as a king or great lord, whose temple 
was the court at which he sat to receive the homage of 
his subjects and tenants, and to entertain them with 
princely hospitality. But it did not satisfactorily account 
for the most characteristic feature in sacrifice, the applica- 
tion of the blood to the altar, and the burning of the fat 
on the sacred hearth. For these, according to the received 
interpretation, were the food of the deity; and so it 
appeared that the god was dependent on man for his 
daily nourishment, although, on the other hand, all the 
good things that man enjoyed he owed to the gift and 
favour of his god. This is the weak point in the current 
view of sacrifice which roused the indignation of the author 
of Psalm 1., and afforded so much merriment to later 
satirists like Lucian. The difficulty might be explained 
away by a spiritualising interpretation, which treated the 
material altar gift as a mere symbol, and urged that the 
true value of the offering lay in the homage of the 
worshipper’s heart, expressed in the traditional oblation. 
But the religion of the masses never took so subtle a 


LECT. XI. OF SACRIFICE 393 
view as this, and to the majority of the worshippers even 
in Israel, before the exile, the dominant idea in the 
ritual was that the material oblation afforded a physical 
satisfaction to the god, and that copious offerings were 
an infallible means of keeping him in good humour. So 
long as sacrifice was exclusively or mainly a social service, 
performed by the community, the crassness of this con- 
ception found its counterpoise in the ideas of religious 
fellowship that have been expounded in Lecture VII 
But in private sacrifice there was little or nothing to 
raise the transaction above the level of a mere bargain, 
in which no ethical consideration was involved, but the 
good understanding between the worshipper and his god 
was maintained by reciprocal friendly offices of a purely 
material kind. This superficial view of religion served 
very well in times of prosperity, but it could not stand 
the strain of serious and prolonged adversity, when 
it became plain that religion had to reckon with the 
sustained displeasure of the gods. In such circumstances 
men were forced to conclude that it was useless to attempt 
to appease the divine wrath by gifts of things which the 
gods, as lords of the earth, already possessed in abundance. 
It was not only Jehovah who could say, “I will take no 
bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats from thy folds; 
for every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a 
thousand hills.’ The Baalim too were in their way lords 
of nature, and even from the standpoint of heathenism 
it was absurd to suppose that they were really dependent 
on the tribute of their worshippers. In short, the gift- 
theory of sacrifice was not enough to account for the rule 
that sacrifice is the sole and sufficient form of every act 
of worship, even in religions which had not realised, with 
the Hebrew prophets, that what the true God requires of 


1 Supra, p. 268 sqq. 


394 GIFT-THEORY LECT. XI. 


His worshippers is not a material oblation, but “to do 
justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.” 
If the theory of sacrifice as a gift or tribute, taken 
from man’s property and conveyed to the deity, was 
inadequate even as applied to ordinary oblations, it was 
evidently still more inadequate as applied to the holocaust, 
and especially to human sacrifice. It is commonly supposed 
that the holocaust was more powerful than ordinary sacri- 
fices, because the gift to the god was greater. But even 
in ordinary sacrifices the whole victim was consecrated and 
made over to the god; only in the holocaust the god kept 
everything to himself, while in ordinary sacrifices he 
invited the worshipper to dine with him. It does not 
appear that there is any good reason, on the doctrine of 
sacrificial tribute, why this difference should be to the 
advantage of the holocaust. In the case of human sacri- 
fices the gift-theory led to results which were not only 
absurd but revolting—absurd, since it does not follow 
that because a man’s firstborn son is dearer to himself 
than all his wealth, the life of that son is the most 
valuable gift that he can offer to his god; and revolting, 
when it came to be supposed that the sacrifice of children 
as fire-offerings was a gift of food to a deity who delighted 
in human flesh! So detestable a view of the nature of 
the gods cannot fairly be said to correspond to the general 
character of the old Semitic religions, which ought to be 
judged of by the ordinary forms of worship and not by 


exceptional rites. If the gods had been habitually con- 


ceived as cannibal monsters, the general type of ritual 
would have been gloomy and timorous, whereas really it 
was full of joyous and even careless confidence. I 
conclude, therefore, that the child-devouring King of the 
later Moloch-worship owes his cannibal attributes, not to 


1 Bzek. xvi. 20, xxiii. 37. 


LECT, XI. OF SACRIFICE 395 


the fundamental principles of Semitic religion, but to false 
logic, straining the gift-theory of sacrifice to cover rites 
to which it had no legitimate application. And _ this 
conclusion is justified when we find that, though human 
sacrifices were not unknown in older times, the ancient 
ritual was to burn them without the camp—a clear proof 
that their flesh was not originally regarded as a food- 
offering to the deity.1 

On the whole, then, the introduction of ideas of - 
property into the relations between men and their gods 
seems to have been one of the most fatal aberrations in 
the development of ancient religion. In the beginnings 
of human thought, the natural and the supernatural, the 
material and the spiritual, were confounded, and _ this 
confusion gave rise to the old notion of holiness, which 
turned on the idea that supernatural influences emanated, 
like an infection, from certain material things. It was 
necessary to human progress that this crude conception 
should be superseded, and at first sight we are disposed to 
see nothing but good in the introduction of the notion 
that holy things are forbidden to man because they are 
reserved for the use of the gods, and that the danger 
associated with illegitimate invasion of them is not due to 
any deadly supernatural influence, directly proceeding from 
the holy object, but to the wrath of a personal god, who 
will not suffer his property to be tampered with. In one 
direction this modification was undoubtedly beneficial, for 
the vague dread of the unknown supernatural, which in 
savage society is so strong that it paralyses progress of 
every kind, and turns man aside from his legitimate task 
of subduing nature to his use, receives a fatal blow as soon 
as all supernatural processes are referred to the will and 


1 Compare the remarks on the sacrifice of the firstborn, infra, Additional 
Note E, 


396 GIFTS AND LECT. XI. 


ne a ee eS Re 


powers of known deities, whose converse with man is 
guided by fixed laws. But it was in the last degree 
unfortunate that these fixed laws were taken to be largely 
based on the principle of property; for the notion of 
property materialises everything that it touches, and its 
introduction into religion made it impossible to rise to 
spiritual conceptions of the deity and his relations to man 
on the basis of traditional religion. On the other hand, 
the more ancient idea of living communion between the 
god and his worshippers, which fell more and more into 
the background under the theory of sacrificial gifts, 
contained an element of permanent truth wrapped up in 
a very crude embodiment, and to it therefore all the 
efforts of ancient heathenism towards a better way of 
converse with the divine powers attach themselves, 
taking hold of those forms and features of sacrifice 
which evidently involved something more than the mere 
presentation to the deity of a material tribute. And as 
the need for something more than the ordinary altar gifts 
supplied was not habitually present to men’s minds, but 
forced itself upon them in grave crises of life, and particu- 
larly in times of danger, when the god seemed to be angry 
with his people, or when at any rate it was of importance 
to make sure that he was not angry, all the aspects of 
worship that go beyond the payment of gifts and tribute 
came to be looked upon as having a special atoning 
character, that is, as being directed not so much to 
maintain a good understanding with the deity, as to. 
renew it when it was interrupted. 

When the idea of atonement is taken in this very 
general form, there is obviously no sharp line between 
atoning and ordinary sacrifices; for in ordinary life the 
means that are used to keep a man in good humour will 
often suftice to restore him to good humour, if they are 


LECT. XI. SPECIAL PIACULA 397 


sedulously employed. On this analogy a mere gift, 
presented at a suitable moment, or of greater value than 
usual, was often thought sufficient to appease the divine 
wrath ; a general atoning force was ascribed to all sacri- 
fices, and the value of special piacula was often estimated 
simply by the consideration that they cost the worshipper 
more than an everyday offering. We have seen that even 
human sacrifices were sometimes considered from this 
point of view; and in general the idea that every offence 
against the deity can be appraised, and made good by a 
payment of a certain value, was not inconsistent with the 
principles of ancient law, which deals with offences against 
persons on the doctrine of retaliation, but admits to an 
almost unlimited extent the doctrine that the injured 
party may waive his right of retaliation in consideration 
of a payment by the offender. But it is not the doctrine 
of ancient law that an injured party can be compelled to 
accept material compensation for an offence; and therefore, 
even on ordinary human analogies, no religious system 
could be regarded as complete which had not more 
powerful means of conjuring the divine displeasure than 
were afforded by the mere offer of a gift or payment. 
In point of fact, all ancient religions had _ sacrificial 
ceremonies of this more powerful kind, in which the 
notion of pleasing the god by a gift either found no 
expression at all, or evidently did not exhaust the signi- 
ficance of the ritual; and these are the sacrifices to which 
the distinctive name of piacula is properly applied. 

It is sometimes supposed that special piacula did not 
exist in the older Semitic religions, and were invented for 
the first time when the gift-theory of sacrifice began to 
break down. But this supposition is incredible in itself, 
and is not consistent with the historical evidence. It is 
incredible that a gift should have been the oldest known 


398 MEANING OF LECT. Xl, 


way of reconciling an offended god, for in ordinary life 
atonement by fine came in at a relatively late date, and 
never entirely superseded the lex talionis; and it is 
certain, from what we have learned by observing the old 
form of piacular holocausts, that these sacrifices were not 
originally regarded as payments to the god, but arose on 
quite different lines, as an independent development of the 
primitive sacrifice of communion, whose atoning efficacy 
rested on the persuasion that those in whose veins the 
same life-blood circulates cannot be other than friends, 
bound to serve each other in all the offices of brother- 
hood. 

It has appeared in the course of our inquiry that two 
kinds of sacrifice, which present features inconsistent with 
the gift-theory, continued to be practised by the ancient 
Semites; and to both kinds there was ascribed a special 
efficacy in persuading or constraining the favour of the 
gods. The first kind is the mystic sacrifice, represented by 
a small class of exceptional rites, im which the victim was 
drawn from some species of animals that retained even in 
modern times their ancient repute of natural holiness. 
Sacrifices of this sort could never fall under the gift-theory, 
for creatures naturally holy are not man’s property, but, so 
far as they have an owner at all, are the property of the 
god. ‘The significance attached to these sacrifices and the 
nature of their peculiar efficacy, has already received 
sufficient attention. The other kind of offering which was 
thought of as something more than a mere gift, consisted 
of holocausts, and other sacrifices, whose flesh was not con- 
veyed to the god and eaten at his table, but burned without 
the camp, or buried, or cast away in a desert place. This 
kind of service we have already studied from a formal 
point of view, considering the way in which its ritual was 
differentiated from the old communion sacrifice, and also 


LECT. XI. SPECIAL PIACULA 399 
the way in which most sacrifices of the kind were ulti- 
mately brought under the class of sacrificial gifts, by the 
introduction of the practice of burning the flesh on the 
altar or burying it in the ghabghab; but we have not yet 
considered how these successive modifications of ritual 
were interpreted and made to fit into the general progress 
of social institutions and ideas. Some notice of this side 
of the subject is necessary to complete our study of the 
principles of ancient sacrifice, and to it the remainder of 
the present lecture will be devoted. 

It must, however, be remembered that in ancient religion 
there was no authoritative interpretation of ritual. It was 
imperative that certain things should be done, but every 
man was free to put his owr meaning on what was done. 
Now the more complicated ritual prestations, to which 
the elaborate piacular services of later times must be 
reckoned, were not forms invented, once for all, to express a 
definite system of ideas, but natural growths, which were 
slowly developed through many centuries, and in their 
final form bore the imprint of a variety of influences, to 
which they had been subjected from age to age under the 
changing conditions of human life and social order. Every 
rite therefore lent itself to more than one interpretation, 
according as this or that aspect of it was seized upon as 
the key to its meaning. Under such circumstances we 
must not attempt to fix a definite interpretation on any of 
the developments of ancient ritual; all that we can hope 
to do is to trace in the ceremonial the influence of success- 
ive phases of thought, the presence of which is attested 
to us by other movements in the structure of ancient society, 
or conversely to show how features in ritual, of which the 
historical origin had been forgotten, were accounted for on 
more modern principles, and used to give support to new 
ideas that were struggling for practical recognition. 


400 ORIGIN OF LECT. XI, 


From the analysis of the ritual of holocausts and other 
piacula given in the last two lectures, it appears that 
through all the varieties of atoning ceremony there runs 
a common principle: the victim is sacrosanct, and the 
peculiar value of the ceremony lies in the operation per- 
formed on its life, whether that life is merely conveyed to 
the god on the altar, or is also applied to the worshippers 
by the sprinkling of the blood, or some other lustral 
ceremony. Both these features are nothing more than 
inheritances from the most primitive form of sacramental 
communion; and in the oldest sacrifices their meaning 
is perfectly transparent and unambiguous, for the ritual 
exactly corresponds with the primitive ideas, that holiness 
means kinship to the worshippers and their god, that 
all sacred relations and all moral obligations depend on 
physical unity of life, and that unity of physical life can 
be created or reinforced by common participation in living 
flesh'and blood. At this earliest stage the atoning force 
of sacrifice is purely physical, and consists in the redin- 
tegration of the congenital physical bond of kinship, on 
which the good understanding between the god and his 
worshippers ultimately rests. But im the later stage of 
religion, in which sacrifices of sacrosanct victims and 
purificatory offerings are exceptional rites, these antique 
ideas were no longer intelligible; and in ordinary sacrifices 
those features of the old ritual were dropped or modified 
which gave expression to obsolete notions, and implied 
a physical transfer of holy life from the victim to the 
worshippers. Here, therefore, the question arises why 
that which had ceased to be intelligible was still pre- 
served in a peculiar class of sacrifices. The obvious 
answer is that it was preserved by the force of use and 
precedent. 

It is common, in discussions of the significance of 


LECT. XI. SPECIAL PIACULA 401 
piacular ritual, to begin with the consideration that piacula 
are atonements for sin, and to assume that the ritual was 
devised with a view to the purchase of divine forgiveness. 
But this is to take the thing by the wrong handle. The 
characteristic features in piacular sacrifice are not the 
invention of a later age, in which the sense of sin and 
divine wrath was strong, but are features carried over 
from a very primitive type of religion, in which the sense 
of sin, in any proper sense of the word, did not exist at 
all, and the whole object of ritual was to maintain the 
bond of physical holiness that kept the religious community 
together. What we have to explain is not the origin of 
the sacrificial forms that later ages called piacular, but the 
way in which the old type of sacrifice came to branch off 
into two distinct types. And here we must consider that, 
even in tolerably advanced societies, the distinction between 
piacular and ordinary offerings long continued to be mainly 
one of ritual, and that the former were not so much 
sacrifices for sin, as sacrifices in which the ceremonial 
forms, observed at the altar, continued to express the 
original idea that the victim’s life was sacrosanct, and 
in some way cognate to the life of the god and his 
worshippers. Thus, among the Hebrews of the pre- 
prophetic period, it certainly appears that a peculiar potency 
was assigned to holocausts and other exceptional sacrifices, 
as a means of conjuring the divine displeasure; but a 
certain atoning force was ascribed to all sacrifices; and, 
on the other hand, sacrifices of piacular form and force 
were offered on many occasions when we cannot suppose 
the sense of sin or of divine anger to have been present in 
any extraordinary degree. For example, it was the custom 
to open a campaign with a burnt-offering, which in old 
Israel was the most solemn piaculum; but this did not 
imply any feeling that war was a divine judgment and a 
26° 


402 ORIGIN OF LECT, XI, 


sion of the anger of Jehovah.’ It appears rather that the 
sacrifice was properly the consecration of the warriors ; for 
the Hebrew phrase for opening war is “ to consecrate war ” 
(nons» wtp), and warriors are consecrated persons, subject 
to special taboos.2 Here, therefore, it lies near at hand to 
suppose that the holocaust is simply the modification, on 
lines which have been already explained, of an ancient 
form of sacramental communion.? The Greeks in like 
manner commenced their wars with piacular sacrifices of 
the most solemn kind; indeed, according to Phylarchus,‘ 
a human victim was at one time customary, which is 
certainly not true for historical times; but I have no 
doubt that the statement of Phylarchus corresponds to a 
wide-spread tradition such as might easily arise if the 
offerings made on occasion of war were of the exceptional 
and sacrosanct character with which legends of actual 
human sacrifice are so frequently associated.® One illus- 


1 The burnt-offering at the opening of a campaign appears in Judg. vi 29 
(cf. ver, 26), xx. 26; 1 Sam. vii. 9, xiii. 10. In Judg. xi, 31 we have, 
instead of a sacrifice before the war, a vow to offer a holocaust on its success- 
ful termination. The view taken by the last redactor of the historical 
books (Judg., Sam., Kings), that the wars of Israel with its neighbours 
were always chastisements for sin, is not ancient; cf. Gen. xxvii. 29, xlix. 8; 
Num, xxiv. 24; Deut. xxxiii. 29. 

2 Isa, xiii. 3; Jer, vi. 4, li. 28; Joel iv. [iii.] 9; Mic. iii. 5. See supra, 
p. 158, and Additional Note C. 

3T conjecture that the form of gathering warriors together by sending 
round portions of a victim that has been hewn into pieces (1 Sam, xi. 7; 
cf. Judg. xix. 29) had originally a sacramental sense, similar to that 
expressed by the covenant form in which the victim is cut in twain; cf. 
Additional Note H, and the Scythian custom noticed by Lucian, Toxaris, 
§ 48. A covenant by hewing an ox into small pieces was also in use among 
the Molossians; Zenobius, ii. 83. 

4 Ap. Porph., De Abst. ii. 56. 

5 Even in the palmy days of Hellenic civilisation we find evidence of a 
deeply-rooted belief in the potency of human sacrifice to ensure victory in 
war. So late as the time of Pelopidas, the propriety of such sacrifice was 
formally discussed, and upheld by historical as well as mythical precedents 
(Plutarch, Pelopidas, 21). But the historical precedents reduce themselves, 
on closer examination, to the single and wholly exceptional case of the 
sacrifice of three captives before the battle of Salamis, On the other hand, 


LECT. XI. SPECIAL PIACULA 403 


tration of Phylarchus’s statement will occur to everyone, 
viz. the sacrifice of Iphigenia; and here it is to be noted 
that, while all forms of the legend are agreed that 
Agamemnon must have committed some deadly sin before 
so terrible an offering was required of him, there is no 
agreement as to what his sin was. It is not therefore 
unreasonable to think that in the original story the 
placulum was simply the ordinary preliminary to a cam- 
paign, and that later ages could not understand why such 
a sacrifice should be made, except to atone for mortal 
guilt.t 

If, now, it be asked why the ordinary preliminary to a 
campaign was a sacrifice of the exceptionally solemn kind 
which in later times was deemed to have a special reference 
to sin, the answer must be that the ritual was fixed by 
immemorial precedent, going back to the time when all 
sacrifices were of the sacramental type, and involved the 
shedding of a sacrosanct life. At that time every sacrifice 
was an awful mystery, and not to be performed except on 
great occasions, when it was most necessary that the bond 
of kindred obligation between every member of the com- 
munity, divine and human, should be as strong and fresh 
as possible. The outbreak of war was plainly such an 
occasion, and it is no hazardous conjecture that the rule 
of commencing a campaign with sacrifice dates from the 
most primitive times.2 Accordingly the ceremonial to be 
observed in sacrifice on such an occasion would be pro- 
tected by well-established tradition, and the victim would 
additions might easily be made to the list of legendary precedents, ¢.g. the 
case of Bombus (Zenobius, ii. 84). 

1 The opening of a campaign appears also in Africa as one of the rare 
occasions that justify the slaughter of a victim from the tribal herds; see 
above, p. 297. 

* There is also some reason to think that in very ancient times a sacrifice 


was appointed to be offered after a victory, See Additional Note M, Sacrifice 
by Victorious Warriors. : 


404 ANNUAL LECT. XI, 


continue to be treated at the altar with all the old ritual 
forms which implied that its blood was holy and akin to 
man’s, long after the general sanctity of all animals of 
sacrificial kind had ceased to be acknowledged in daily 
life. And in the same way sacrifices of exceptional form, 
in which the victim was treated as a human being, or its 
blood was applied in a primitive ceremonial to the persons 
of the worshippers, or its flesh was regarded as too sacred 
to be eaten, would continue to be offered on all occasions 
which were marked out as demanding a sacrifice, by some 
very ancient rule, dating from the time when the natural 
sanctity of sacrificial kinds was still recognised. In such 
cases the ancient ceremonial would be protected by im- 
memorial custom; while, on the other hand, there would 
be nothing to prevent a more modern type of ritual from 
coming into use on occasions for which there was no 
ancient sacrificial precedent, eg. on such occasions as ar st 
for the first time under the conditions of agricultural life, 
when the old sanctity of domestic animals was very much 
broken down. Sacrifices were vastly more frequent with 
the agricultural than with the pastoral nations of antiquity, 
but, among the older agricultural Semites, the occasions 
that called for sacrifices of exceptional or piacular form 
were not numerous, and may fairly be regarded as corre- 
sponding in the main to the rare occasions for which the 
death of a victim was already prescribed by the rules of 
their nomadic ancestors. 

This, it may be said, is no more than a hypothesis, but 
it satisfies the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis, by 
postulating the operation of no unknown or uncertain 
cause, but only of that force of precedent which in all 
times has been so strong to keep alive religious forms of 
which the original meaning is lost. And in certain cases, 
at any rate, it is very evident that rites of exceptional 


LECT, XI. PIACULA ao 


form, which later ages generally connected with ideas of 
sin and atonement, were merely the modern representatives 
of primitive sacraments, kept up through sheer force of 
habit, without any deeper meaning corresponding to the 
peculiar solemnity of their form. Thus the annual piacula 
that were celebrated, with exceptional rites, by most nations 
of antiquity, are not necessarily to be regarded as having 
their first origin in a growing sense of sin or fear of divine 
wrath,—although these reasons operated in later times to 
multiply such acts of service and increase the importance 
attached to them,—but are often nothing more than sur- 
vivals of ancient annual sacrifices of communion in the 
body and blood of a sacred animal. For in some of these 
rites, as we have seen in Lecture VIII.) the form of com- 
munion in fiesh too holy to be eaten except in a sacred 
mystery is retained; and where this is not the case, there 
is at least some feature in the annual piaculum which 
reveals its connection with the oldest type of sacrifice. 
It is a mistake to suppose that annual religious feasts date 
only from the beginnings of agricultural life, with its 
yearly round of seed-time and harvest; for in all parts of 
the world annual sacraments are found, and that not 
merely among pastoral races, but even in rude hunting 
tribes that have not emerged from the totem stage? And 
though some of these totem sacraments involve actual com- 
munion in the flesh and blood of the sacred animal, the 
commoner case, even in this primitive stage of society, 
is that the theanthropic victim is deemed too holy to be 
eaten, and therefore, as in the majority of Semitic piacula, 
is burned, buried, or cast into a stream.’ It is certainly 

1 Supra, p. 290 sqq. 

* For examples of annual sacraments by sacrifice of the totem, see Frazer, 
Totemism and Exogamy, i. 44 sq. (iv. 232 sq.), and supra, p. 295, note 2. 


3 | apprehend that in most climates the vicissitudes of the seasons are 
certainly not less important to the savage huntsman or to the pastoral 


406 - ANNUAL LECT. Xk 
illegitimate to connect these very primitive piacula with 
any explicit ideas of sin and forgiveness; they have their 
origin in a purely naturalistic conception of holiness, and 
mean nothing more than that the mystic unity of life in 
the religious community is liable to wear out, and must be 
revived and strengthened from time to time. 

Among the annual piacula of the more advanced 
Semites which, though they are not mystical sacrifices of 
an “unclean” animal, yet bear on their face the marks of 
extreme antiquity, the first place belongs to the Hebrew 
Passover, held in the spring month Nisan, where the 
primitive character of the offering appears not only from 
the details of the ritual, but from the coincidence of its 
season with that of the Arabian sacrifices in the month 
Rajab. Similarly in Cyprus, on the first of April, a sheep 
was offered to Astarte (Aphrodite) with ritual of a char- 
acter evidently piacular.2 At Hierapolis, in like manner, 
the chief feast of the year was the vernal ceremony of the 
Pyre, in which animals were burned alive—an antique 
ritual which has been illustrated in the last lecture. And 
again, among the Harranians, the first half of Nisan was 
barbarian than to the more civilised tiller of the soil. From Doughty’s 
account of the pastoral tribes of the Arabian desert, and also from what 
Agatharchides tells us of the herdsmen by the Red Sea, we perceive that 
in the purely pastoral life the seasons when pasture fails are annual periods 
of semi-starvation for man and beast. Among still ruder races, like the 
Australians, who have no domestic animals, the difference of the seasons is 
yet more painfully felt ; so mnch so, indeed, that in some parts of Australia 
children are not born except at one season of the year; the annual changes 
of nature have impressed themselves on the life of man to a degree hardly 
conceivable to us. In pastoral Arabia domestic cattle habitually yean in 
the brief season of the spring pasture (Doughty, i. 429), and this would 
serve to fix an annual season of sacrifice. Camels calve in February and 
early March; Blunt, Bed. Tribes, ii. 166. 

1 Supra, p. 844. Note also that the head and the inwards have to be 
eaten, 7.¢. the special seats of life (Ex. xii. 9). 
2 Lydus, De Mens. iv. 45; cf. Additional Note G. The x#dv marks 


the sacrifice as piacular, whether my conjecture xwiiw icaxrwacuivo for xwdig 
isxiwacuivoy is accepted or not, 


LECT. XI. PIACULA 407 


marked by a series of exceptional sacrifices of piacular 
colour.? 

So remarkable a concurrence in the season of the great 
annual piacular rites of Semitic communities leaves little 
doubt as to the extreme antiquity of the institution. 
Otherwise the season of the annual piacula is not material 
to our present purpose, except in so far as its coincidence 
with the yeaning time appears to be connected with the 
frequent use of sucking lambs and other very young 
animals as piacular victims. This point, however, seems 
to be of some importance as an indirect evidence of the 
antiquity of annual piacula. The reason often given for 
the sacrifice of very young animals, that a man thus got 
rid of a sacred obligation at the very cheapest rate, is not 
one that can be seriously maintained; while, on the other 
hand, the analogy of infanticide, which in many savage 
countries is not regarded as murder if it be performed 
immediately after birth, makes it very intelligible that, in 
those primitive times when a domestic animal had a life 
as sacred as that of a tribesman, new-born calves or lambs 
should be selected for sacrifice. The selection of an annual 
season of sacrifice coincident with the yeaning-time may 
therefore be plausibly referred to the time when sacrificial 
slaughter was still a rare and awful event, involving 
responsibilities which the worshippers were anxious to 
reduce, by every device, within the narrowest possible 
limits. 

The point which I took a little time ago, that sacrifices 
of piacular form are not necessarily associated with a sense 
of sin, comes out very clearly in the case of annual piacula. 
Among the Hebrews, under the Law, the annual expiation 


1 Fihrist, p. 322. Traces of the sacredness of the month Nisan are found 
also at Palmyra (Hc. Brit.® xviii. 199, note 2), and among the Nabatzans, 
as Berger has inferred from a study of the inscriptions of Madain-Salih. 


408 ANNUAL LECT. X} 
on the great Day of Atonement was directed to cleanse 
the people from all their sins,! 2.e. according to the Mishnic 
interpretation, to purge away the guilt of all sins, committed 
during the year, that had not been already expiated by 
penitence, or by the special piacula appointed for particular 
offences; but there is little trace of any such view 
in connection with the annual piacula of the heathen 
Semites ; and even in the Old Testament this interpreta- 
tion appears to be modern. The Day of Atonement is a 
much less ancient institution than the Passover; and in 
the Passover, though the sprinkled blood has a protecting 
efficacy, the law prescribes no forms of humiliation and 
contrition, such as are enjoined for the more modern rite. 
Again, the prophet Ezekiel, whose sketch of a legislation 
for Israel, on its restoration from captivity, is older than 
the law of Leviticus, does indeed provide for two annual 
atoning ceremonies, in the first and in the seventh 
month ;? but the point of these ceremonies lies in an 
elaborate application of the blood to various parts of the 
temple, with the object of “reconciling the house.” This 
reference of the sacrifice reappears also in Lev. xvi; 
the sprinkling of the blood on the great Day of Atone- 
ment “cleanses the altar, and makes it holy from all the 
uncleanness of the children of Israel.”* Here an older 
and merely physical conception of the ritual breaks through, 
which has nothing to do with the forgiveness of sin; for 
uncleanness in the Levitical ritual is not an ethical concep- 
tion. It seems that the holiness of the altar is liable to 
be impaired, and requires to be annually refreshed by an 
application of holy blood—a conception which it would be 
hard to justify from the higher teaching of the Old Testa- 


1 Lev. xvi. 380. 2 Yoma, viii. 8, 9. 

3 Ezek, xlv. 19, 20 (LXX.). 

4 Lev. xvi. 19; cf, ver. 88, where the atonement extends to the whole 
sanctuary. 


LECT. XI. PIACULA 409 


ment, but which is perfectly intelligible as an inheritance 
from primitive ideas about sacrifice, in which the altar- 
idol on its part, as well as the worshippers on theirs, is 
periodically reconsecrated by the sprinkling of holy (ae. 
kindred) blood, in order that the life-bond between the 
god it represents and his kindred worshippers may be kept 
fresh. This is the ultimate meaning of the yearly sprinkling 
with a tribesman’s blood, which, as Theophrastus tells us, 
was demanded by so many altars of antiquity,! and also of 
the yearly sprinkling where the victim was not a man, but 
a sacrosanct or theanthropic animal. 

Of all this, however, the later ages of antique religion 
understood no more than that ancient tradition prescribed 
certain annual rites of peculiar and sometimes of awful 
character as indispensable to the maintenance of normal 
relations between the gods and the worshipping com- 
munity. The neglect of these rites, it was believed, 
entailed the wrath of the gods; the Carthaginians, for 
example, in their distress in the war with Agathocles, 
believed that Cronus was angry because slaves had been 
substituted for the noble boys that were his proper victims. 
But it does not appear that they looked behind this and 
concluded that the god could not demand periodical sacri- 
fices of such price except as an atonement for the ever- 
recurring sins of the nation. Ancient religion was so 
entirely ruled by precedent, that men did not deem it 
necessary to have an adequate moral explanation even of 
the most exorbitant demands of traditional ritual; they 
were content to explain them by some legend that told 
how the ritual first came to be set up. Thus Diodorus, 

1 Examples of annual human sacrifice in the Semitic field at Carthage, 
Porph., De Abst. ii. 27 (from Theophrastus), Pliny, H. NV. xxxvi. 29 ; at 
Dumetha, or Duma, in Arabia, De Abst. ii. 56. At Laodicea in Syria the 


anpual sacrifice of a deer was held to be a substitute for the more ancient 
sacrifice of a virgin, (See below, Additional Note F.) 


410 ANNUAL LECT. XI 
when he mentions the Carthaginian human sacrifices, sug- 
gests the probability that they preserve the memory of 
Cronus devouring his children;1 and the Phcenicians 
themselves appear, from the fragments of Philo Byblius, 
to have traced back the custom of sacrificing children to 
a precedent set by the God El, whom the Greeks identify 
with Cronus.” 

Indeed, among the Semites the most current view of 
annual piacula seems to have been that they commemorate 
a divine tragedy—the death of some god or goddess? The 
origin of such myths is easily explained from the nature 
of the ritual. Originally the death of the god was nothing 
else than the death of the theanthropic victim; but when 
this ceased to be understood it was thought that the 
piacular sacrifice represented an historical tragedy in 
which the god was killed. Thus at Laodicea the annwal 
sacrifice of a deer in lieu of a maiden, which was offered 
to the goddess of the city, is associated with a legend that 
the goddess was a maiden who had been sacrificed to 
consecrate the foundation of the town, and was thence- 
forth worshipped as its Fortune, like Dido at Carthage ; it 
was therefore the death of the goddess herself that was 
annually renewed in the piacular rite. The same ex- 
planation applies to such scenic representations as were 
spoken of in the last lecture, where the deity is annually 
burned in effigy, since the substitution of an effigy for a 

1 Diod. xx. 14. 

2 Euseb., Prep. Hv. i. 10. 21, 33. Thus it would seem that even the 
unenlightened Israelites addressed in Mic. vi. 7 had a profounder sense of 
sin than was current among the heathen Semites. 

3] have not noted any Semitic example of another type of explanatory 
legend of which there are various instances in Greece, viz. that the annual 
piaculum was appointed as the punishment of an ancient crime for which 
satisfaction had to be made from generation to generation: Pausan. ix, 8. 2 
(at Potniz), vii. 19 sg. (at Patre in Achaia). In both cases, according te 


the legend, the sacrifice was originally human. 
* Supra, p. 364 sqq. 


LECT. XI. PIACULA 41] 
human sacrifice, or for a victim representing a god, is very 
common in antique and barbarous religions! And in like 
manner the annual mourning for Tammuz or Adonis, which 
supplies the closest parallel in point of form to the fast- 
ing and humiliation on the Hebrew Day of Atonement, is 
the scenic commemoration of a divine tragedy in which 
the worshippers take part with appropriate wailing and 
lamentation. That the rites of the Semitic Adonia? were 
connected with a great sacrificial act, may safely be inferred 
on general principles ; and that the sacrifice was piacular in 
form, follows from Lucian’s account of the ritual of Byblus: 
“When they have done wailing they first burn a sacrifice ® 
to Adonis as to one dead ”—the offering therefore was a 
holocaust as in other annual piacula, and probably corre- 
sponds to the annual sacrifice of swine on April 2, at Cyprus, 
which Joannes Lydus connects with the Adonis legend.‘ 
The Adonia therefore seem to me to be only a special 
form of annual piaculum, in which the sacrifice has come 
to be overshadowed by its popular and dramatic accompani- 
ments.° The legend, the exhibition of the dead god in 
effigy,® the formal act of wailing, which filled all the streets 

1 Thus the Romans substituted puppets of rushes or wool for human 
offerings in the Argea and the worship of Mania. In Mexico, again, human 
victims were habitually regarded as incarnations of the deity, but also paste 
images of the gods were made\and eaten sacramentally. 

* I use this word as a convenient general term describing a particular 
type of ritual, without committing myself to the opinion that all rites of the 
type were in connection with the worsnip of the same god. It is not even 
certain that there was a god Adonis. What the Greeks took for a proper 
name is perhaps no more than a title, Adon, ‘‘lord,” applicable to various 
deities, CJL. viii, 1211. 

* Karayifoves ; for the sense of the word compare Lucian, De Luctu, 19. 

4 Supra, p. 290 sg. If this be so, the Cyprian Adonis was originally the 
Swine-god, and in this as in many other cases the sacred victim has been 
changed by false interpretation into the enemy of the god. Cf. Frazer, 
The Golden Bough, viii. 22 sq., 31. 

‘© In Greece, where the Adonia were no part of the State religion, the 


celebration seems to have been limited to these. 
‘This is part of the genuine Semitic ritual, not merely Greek or 


412 ANNUAL LECT. Xi. 


and was not confined to the sanctuary, took much greater 
hold of the imagination than the antique piaculum at the 
temple, and became one of the most deeply rooted parts 
of popular religion Late in the Middle Ages, in A.D 
1064 and again in 1204, the Arabic historian Ibn al- 
Athir? records sporadic revivals, on a great scale, of the 
ancient lament for the dead god. Im the former case a 
mysterious threat was circulated from Armenia to Chuzistan, 
that every town which did not lament the dead “king of 
the Jinn” should utterly perish ; in the latter a fatal disease 
raged in the parts of Mosul and Irac, “and it was divulged 
that a woman of the Jinn called Omm ‘Oncéd (Mother of 
the Grape-cluster) had lost her son, and that everyone who 
would not make lamentation for him would fall a victim 
to the epidemic.”’ In this case the form of the lamentation 
is recorded: ‘“‘OQ Omm ‘Oncdd, excuse us, ‘Oncdd is dead, 
we knew it not.” 

It seems to me that one characteristic feature in these 
late observances is entirely true to the spirit of the old 
Semitic heathenism. The mourning is not a spontaneous 
expression of sympathy with the divine tragedy, but ob- 
ligatory and enforced by fear of supernatural anger. And 
a chief object of the mourners is to disclaim responsibility 
for the god’s death—a point which has already come before 
us in connection with theanthropic sacrifices, such as the 
“ ox-murder at Athens.” 

When the original meaning of the theanthropic ritual 
was forgotten, and the death of the god was explained by 


Alexandrian ; see Lampridius, Heliog. vii.: ‘‘Salambonam etiam omni 
planctu et iactatione Syriaci cultus exhibuit.” As it is not disputed that 
Salambo or Salambas = ya oby, ‘the image of Baal,” it is strange that 
scholars should have been misled by Hesychius and the Htym. Magn. into 
making Salambo a name of the Oriental Aphrodite. 

1 Dea Syria, 6 (Byblus); Ammianus, xx. 9. 15 (Antioch). 

2 Ed. Tornberg, x. 283; cf. Bar Hebreus, Chron. Syr. ed. Bedjan, 
p. 242. 


LECT. XI. PIACULA 413 


legendary history as a thing of the far past, the obligatory 
mourning at the annual piaculum was continued by force 
of usage, and presumably gave rise to various speculations 
which can only be matter of conjecture to us. But it is 
reasonable to suppose that ceremonies which were currently 
interpreted as the commemoration of a mythical tragedy 
could not suggest to the mass of the worshippers any 
ethical ideas transcending those embodied in the myth. 
The legends of the deaths of Semitic gods that have come 
down to us are singularly devoid of moral significance, and 
it is difficult to believe that they could excite any deeper 
feeling than a vague sentimental sympathy, or a melancholy 
conviction that the gods themselves were not exempt from 
the universal law of suffering and death. And with the 
common crowd I apprehend that the main feeling involved 
was generally that which we have seen to survive in the 
latest manifestations of heathen sentiment—the feeling 
that a bereaved deity is an angry deity, who may strike 
blindly all round at those who are not careful to free 
themselves from the suspicion of blame. 

Among the agricultural Semites, where the Baal was 
mainly worshipped as the giver of vegetative increase and 
the quickening spirit of vegetative life, the annual mourn- 
ing for the dead god seems often to have been brought 
into relation to agriculture and the cycle of agricultural 
feasts. In the Baal religion all agricultural operations, 
but particularly the harvest and vintage, are necessarily 
viewed as in some degree trenching on the holy things of 
the god, and must be conducted with special religious pre- 
cautions! Thus among the Hebrews the spring piaculum 
of the Passover, which in its origin belongs to the pre- 
agricultural stage of Semitic society, was connected in the 
Pentateuchal system with the opening of the corn-harvest, 

1 Supra, p. 158. 


414 ANNUAL DEATH LECT. Xl 
and in like manner the great Day of Atonement precedes 
the vintage feast. Mr. Frazer has brought together a good 
deal of evidence connecting the Adonia—or rather certain 
forms of the Adonia !—with the corn-harvest; the death of 
the god being held to be annually repeated in the cutting 
of the divine grain.? Similarly the wailing for ‘Oncdd, the 
divine Grape-cluster, seems to be the last survival of an old 
vintage piaculum. I can only touch on this point here, 
since the developments of religion connected with agriculture 
lie beyond the scope of the present volume. The dread of 
the worshippers, that the neglect of the usual ritual would 
be followed by disaster, is particularly intelligible if they 
regarded the necessary operations of agriculture as involving 
the violent extinction of a particle of divine life. Here, 
in fact, the horror attending the service is much the same 
as in the case of the original theanthropic sacrifice, only 
it is a holy fruit that suffers instead of a holy animal. 

In the brighter days of Semitic heathenism, the annual 
celebration of the god’s death hardly suggested any serious 
thought that was not presently drowned in an outburst of 
mirth saluting the resurrection of the Baal on the following 
morning; and in more distressful times, when the gloomier 
aspects of religion were those most in sympathy with the 
prevailing hopelessness of a decadent nation,—such times 
as those in which Ezekiel found the women of Jerusalem 


! The rites of Byblus cannot be connected either with vintage or harvest, 
for both of these fall in the dry season, and the Byblian god died when his 
sacred river was swollen withrain. Here the pre-agricultural spring piaculum 
seems to have retained its old place in the yearly religious cycle. 

2 The Golden Bough, vol. v. chap. ix. The evidence adduced by Mr. 
Frazer is not all applicable without limitation to the Semitic Adonia— 
Greek and Alexandrian forms of the mourning were probably coloured by 
Greek and Egyptian influence. The Semitic evidence points to Babylonia 
as the source of the Semitic corn piaculum ; it is therefore worth noting 
that Bezold finds Tammuz and the following month Ab designated as the 
harvest months of N. Babylonia in the fourteenth century B.c. (Z'ell el- 
Amarna Tablets, Brit. Mus. 1892, p. xxix). 


LECT, XI. OF THE GOD 415 
mourning for Tammuz,—the idea that the gods themselves 
were not exempt from the universal law of death, and had 
ordered this truth to be commemorated in their temples 
by bloody, or even human sacrifices, could only favour the 
belief that religion was as cruel as the relentless march of 
adverse fate, and that man’s life was ruled by powers that 
were not to be touched by love or pity, but, if they could 
be moved at all, would only be satisfied by the sacrifice of 
man’s happiness and the surrender of his dearest treasures. 
The close psychological connection between sensuality and 
cruelty, which is familiar to students of the human mind, 
displays itself in ghastly fashion in the sterner aspects of 
Semitic heathenism; and the same sanctuaries which, in 
prosperous times, resounded with licentious mirth and 
carnal gaiety, were filled in times of distress with the 
cowardly lamentations of worshippers, who to save their 
own lives were ready to give up everything they held dear, 
even to the sacrifice of a firstborn or only child. 

On the whole the annual piacula of Semitic heathenism 
appear theatrical and unreal, when they are not cruel and 
repulsive. The stated occurrence of gloomy rites at fixed 
seasons, and without any direct relation to human conduct, 
gave the whole ceremony a mechanical character, and so 
made it inevitable that it should be either accepted as a 
mere scenic tragedy, whose meaning was summed up in a 
myth, or interpreted as a proof that the divine powers 
were never thoroughly reconciled to man, and only tolerated 
their worshippers in consideration of costly atonements 
constantly renewed. I apprehend that even in Israel the 
annual piacula, which were observed from an early date, 
had little or no share in the development of the higher 
sense of sin and responsibility which characterises the 
religion of the Old Testament. The Passover is a rite of 
the most primeval antiquity; and in the local cults, 


416 INTERPRETATION OF LECT. Xi. 
annual mournings, like the lamentation for Jephthah’s 
daughter, — which undoubtedly was connected with an 
annual sacrifice, like that which at Laodicea commemorated 
the mythical death of the virgin goddess,—had been yearly 
repeated from very ancient times. Yet, only after the 
exile, and then only by a sort of afterthought, which does 
not override the priestly idea that the annual atonement is 
above all a reconsecration of the altar and the sanctuary, 
do we find the annual piaculum of the Day of Atonement 
interpreted as a general atonement for the sins of Israel 
during the past year. In the older literature, when 
exceptional and piacular rites are interpreted as satis- 
factions for sin, the offence is always a definite one, and 
the piacular rite has not a stated and periodical character, 
but is directly addressed to the atonement of a particular 
sin or course of sinful life. 

The conception of piacular rites as a satisfaction for sin 
appears to have arisen after the original sense of thw 
theanthropic sacrifice of a kindred animal was forgotten, 
and mainly in connection with the view that the life of the 
victim was the equivalent of the life of a human member 
of the religious community. We have seen that when the 
victim was no longer regarded as naturally holy, and 
equally akin to the god and his worshippers, the ceremony 
of its death was still performed with solemn circumstances, 
not appropriate to the slaughter of a mere common beast. 
It was thus inevitable that the victim should be regarded 
either as a representative of the god, or as the representa- 
tive of a tribesman, whose life was sacred to his fellows. 
The former interpretation predominated in the annual 
piacula of the Baal religions, but the latter was that 
naturally indicated in such atoning sacrifices as were 
offered on special emergencies and did not lend them- 
selves to a mythical interpretation. For in old times 


LECT, XI. ANNUAL PIACULA 417 


the circumstances of the slaughter were those of a death 
which could only be justified by the consent, and even 
by the active participation, of the whole community, 1. 
of the judicial execution of a kinsman.1 In later times 
this rule was modified, and in ordinary sacrifices the 
victim was slain either by the offerer, or by professional 
slaughterers, who formed a class of inferior ministers at 
the greater sanctuaries.” But communal holocausts and 
piacula continued to be slain by the chief priests, or by 
the heads of the community or by their chosen representa- 
tives, so that the slaughter retained the character of a 
solemn public act. Again, the feeling that the slaying 
involves a grave responsibility, and must be justified by 
divine permission, was expressed by the Arabs, even in 
ordinary slaughter, by the use of the bismillah, 1.e. by the 
slaughterer striking the victim in the name of his god.‘ 
But in many piacula this feeling was carried much further, 
and care was taken to slay the victim without bloodshed, 
or to make believe that it had killed itself.° Certain 


1 Supra, p. 284 sq. 

2In CIS. No. 86, the ministers of the temple include a class of 
slaughterers (QM3}), and so it was at Hierapolis (Dea Syria, xliii.). Among 
the Jews, at the second temple, the Levites often acted as slaughterers; but 
before the captivity the temple slaughterers were uncircumcised foreigners 
(Ezek. xliv. 6 sqg.; cf. 0.7. in J. Ch. 2nd ed., p. 260 sgq.). 

3 Thus in the Old Testament we find young men as sacrificers in Ex. 
xxiv. 5; the elders in Lev. iv. 15, Deut. xxi. 4; Aaron in Lev. xvi. 15; 
cf. Yoma, iv. 3. All sacrifices, except the last named, might, according to 
the Rabbins, be killed by any Israelite. 

The choice of ‘‘ young men,” or rather ‘‘lads,” as sacrificers in Ex. xxiv. 
is curiously analogous to the choice of lads as executioners. Judg. viii. 20 
is not an isolated case, for Nilus also (p. 67) says that the Saracens charged 
lads with the execution of their captives. 

4 The same feeling is expressed in Lev. xvii. 11; Gen. viii. 3 sqq. 

5 The blood that calls for vengeance is blood that falls on the ground 
(Gen. iv. 10). Hence blood to which vengeance is refused is said to be 
trodden under foot (Ibn Hishim, p. 79, wlt., p. 861, 1. 5), and forgotten 
blood is covered by the earth (Job xvi. 18). And so we often find the idea 
that a death in which no blood is shed, or none falls upon the ground, does 
not call for vengeance ; while, on the other hand, a simple blow calls for 


27 


418 SACRIFICES AND LECT. XI. 
holocausts, like those of the Pyre-festival at Hierapolis, 
were burned alive; and other piacula were simply pushed 
over a height, so that they might seem to kill themselves 
by their fall, This was done at Hierapolis, both with 
animals and with human victims; and, according to the 
Mishna, the Hebrew scapegoat was not allowed to go free 
in the wilderness, but was killed by being pushed over a 
precipice. The same kind of sacrifice occurs in Egypt, in 
a rite which is possibly of Semitic origin,” and in Greece, 
in more than one case where the victims were human.? 

All such forms of sacrifice are precisely parallel to 
those which were employed in sacred executions, 2.¢. in 
the judicial slaying of members of the community. The 
criminal in ancient times was either stoned by the whole 
congregation, as was the usual form of the execution among 
the ancient Hebrews; or strangled, as was commonly done 
among the later Jews; or drowned, as in the Roman punish- 
ment for parricide, where the kin in the narrower sense 
is called on to execute justice on one of its own members ; 
or otherwise disposed of in some way which either avoids 
bloodshed or prevents the guilt of blood from being fixed 
on an individual. These coincidences between the ritual 
of sacrifice and of execution are not accidental; in each 
case they had their origin in the scruple against shedding 


blood-revenge, if it happens to draw blood through the accident of its falling 
on a sore (Moffaddal al-Dabbi, Amihal, p. 10, ed. Constant. AH. 1300). 
Infanticide in Arabia was effected by burying the child alive; captive kings 
were slain by bleeding them into a cup, and if one drop touched the ground 
it was thought that their death would be revenged (supra, p. 369, note 1). 
Applications of this principle to sacrifices of sacrosanct and kindred animals 
are frequent ; they are strangled or killed with a blunt instrument (supra, 
p- 348; note also the club or mallet that appears in sacrificial scenes on 
ancient Chaldean cylinders, Menant, Glyptique, i. 151), or at least no drop 
of their blood must fall on the ground (Bancroft, iii. 168). 

1 Dea Syria, lviii.; Yora, vi. 6. 

4 Plutarch, Js. et Os. § 30; cf. Additional Note F. 

¥ At the Thargelia, and in the Leucadian ceremony. 


LECT, XI. JUDICIAL EXECUTIONS 419 


kindred blood; and, when the old ideas of the kinship 
of man and beast became unintelligible, they helped to 
establish the view that the victim whose life was treated 
as equivalent to that of a man was a sacrifice to justice, 
accepted in atonement for the guilt of the worshippers. 
The parallelism between piacular sacrifice and execution 
came out with particular clearness where the victim was 
wholly burnt, or where it was cast down a precipice; for 
burning was the punishment appointed among the Hebrews 
and other ancient nations for impious offences,’ and casting 
from a cliff is one of the commonest forms of execution.? 
The idea originally connected with the execution of 
a tribesman is not exactly penal in our sense of the 
word: the object is not to punish the offender, but to 
rid the community of an impious member—ordinarily a 
tan who has shed the sacred tribal blood. Murder and 
incest, or offences of a like kind against the sacred laws 
of blood, are in primitive society the only crimes of which 
the community as such takes cognisance; the offences of 
man against man are matters of private law, to be settled 
between the parties on the principle of retaliation or by 
the payment of damages. But murder, to which as the 
typical form of crime we may confine our attention, is an 
inexpiable offence, for which no compensation can be 
taken; the man who has killed his kinsman or his 
covenant ally, whether of design or by chance, is impious, 


1 Gen. xxxvili. 24; Lev. xx. 14, xxi. 9; Josh. vii. 15. 

2 The Tarpeian rock at Rome will occur toeveryone. Among the Hebrews 
we find captives so killed (2 Chron. xxv. 12), and in our own days the Sinai 
Arabs killed Prof. Palmer by making him leap from a rock ; cf. also 2 Kings 
viii. 12, Hos. x. 14, from which it would seem that this was the usual way 
of killing non-combatants. I apprehend that the obscure form of execution 
‘before the Lord,” mentioned in 2 Sam. xxi. 9 (and also Num. xxy. 4), is 
of the same sort, for the victims fall and are killed ; ypin will answer to 


£ 


:,| Note that this religious execution takes place at the season of the 


Paschal piaculum. 


420 SACRIFICES AND LECT. XI. 
and must be cut off from his community by death or 
outlawry. And in such a case the execution or banish- 
ment of the culprit is a religious duty, for if it is not 
performed the anger of the deity rests on the whole kin 
or community of the murderers. 

In the oldest state of society the punishment of a 
murderer is not on all fours with a case of blood-revenge. 
Blood-revenge applies to manslaughter, «.¢. to the killing of 
a stranger. And in that case the dead man’s kin make no 
effort to discover and punish the individual slayer; they 
hold his whole kin responsible for his act, and take 
vengeance on the first of them on whom they can lay 
hands. In: the case of murder, on the other hand, the 
point is to rid the kin of an impious person, who has 
violated the sanctity of the tribal blood, and here there- 
fore it is important to discover and punish the criminal 
himself. But if he cannot be discovered, some other means 
must be taken to blot out the impiety and restore the 
harmony between the community and its god, and for this 
purpose a sacramental sacrifice is obviously indicated, such 
as Deut. xxi. provides for the purging of the community 
from the guilt of an untraced murder. In such a case it 
was inevitable that the sacrifice, performed as it was with 
circumstances closely akin to those of an execution, should 
come to be regarded as a surrogate for the death of the 
true culprit. And this interpretation was all the more 
readily established because, from an early date, the alliance 
of different kins had begun to give rise to cases of homi- 
cide in which the line of distinction was no longer clear 
between murder and manslaughter, between the case where 
the culprit himself must die, and the case where any life 


1 Here the responsibility for the bloodshed falls on the nearest town 
(ver. 2); cf. Agh. ix. 178, 1. 26 sg., where the blood-wit for a man ai is 
charged to the nearest homestead. 


LECT. XI. JUDICIAL EXECUTIONS 421 


kindred to his may suffice. Thus in the time of David! 
the Israelites admit that a crime calling for expiation was 
committed by Saul when he slew the Gibeonites, who were 
the sworn allies of Israel. But, on the other hand, the 
Gibeonites claim satisfaction under the law of blood- 
revenge, and ask that in lieu of Saul himself certain 
members of his house shall be given up to them. And in 
this way the idea of substitution is brought in, even in a 
case which is, strictly speaking, one of murder. 

In all discussion of the doctrine of substitution as 
applied to sacrifice, it must be remembered that private 
sacrifice is a younger thing than clan sacrifice, and that 
private piacula offered by an individual for his own sins 
are of comparatively modern institution. The mortal sin 
of an individual—and it is only mortal sin that has to be 
considered in this connection—was a thing that affected 
the whole community, or the whole kin of the offender. 
Thus the inexpiable sin of the sons of Eli is visited on 
his whole clan from generation to generation ;? the sin of 
Achan is the sin of Israel, and as such is punished by the 
defeat of the national army ;? and the sin of Saul and 
“his bloody house” (ze. the house involved in the blood- 
shed) leads to a three years’ famine. Accordingly it is 
the business of the community to narrow the responsibility 
for the crime, and to free itself of the contagious taint by 
fixing the guilt either on a single individual, or at least on 
his immediate kin, as in the case of Achan, who was stoned 
and then buried with his whole family. Hence, when a 
tribesman is executed for an impious offence, he dies on 
behalf of the community, to restore normal relations 
between them and their god; so that the analogy with 
sacrifice is very close in purpose as well as in form. And 
so the cases in which the anger of the god can be traced 

12 Sam. xxi. 21 Sam. ii. 27 sqq. 8 Josh, vii. 1, 11 


422 DOCTRINE OF LECT, XI 
to the crime of a particular individual, and atoned for by his 
death, are very naturally seized upon to explain the cases in 
which the sin of the community cannot be thus individualised, 
but where, nevertheless, according to ancient custom, recon- 
ciliation is sought through the sacrifice of a theanthropic 
victim. The old explanation, that the life of the sacrosanct 
animal is used to retie the life-bond between the god and his 
worshippers, fell out of date when the kinship of races of 
men with animal kinds was forgotten. A new explanation 
had to be sought; and none lay nearer than that the sin 
of the community was concentrated on the victim, and 
that its death was accepted as a sacrifice to divine justice. 
This explanation was natural, and appears to have been 
widely adopted, though it hardly became a formal dogma, 
for ancient religion had no official dogmas, but contented 
itself with continuing to practise antique rites, and letting 
everyone interpret them as he would. Even in the 
Levitical law the imposition of hands on the head of the 
victim is not formally interpreted as a laying of the sins of 
the people on its head, except in the case of the scape-goat.? 
And here the carrying away of the people's guilt to an 
isolated and desert region (A771) pox) has its nearest 
analogies, not in ordinary atoning sacrifices, but in those 
physical methods of getting rid of an infectious taboo 
which characterise the lowest forms of superstition. The 
same form of disinfection recurs in the Levitical legis- 
lation, where a live bird is made to fly away with the 
contagion of leprosy,” and in Arabian custom, when a 
widow before remarriage makes a bird fly away with 
the uncleanness of her widowhood? In ordinary burnt- 


1 Lev. xvi. 21. 2 Lev. xiv. 7, 53; cf. Zech. v. 5 sqq. 


3 Taj al-‘Aris, 8.v. (a4, VIII. (Lane, s.v.; 0. T. in J. Ch., Ist ed., 
p. 439; Wellh.? p. 156). An Assyrian parallel in Records of the Past, ix. 
151. It is indeed probable that in the oldest times the outlawry of a 


LECT, XI. SUBSTITUTION 423 
offerings and sin-offerings the imposition of hands is not 
officially interpreted by the Law as a transference of sin 
to the victim, but rather has the same sense as in acts of 
blessing or consecration,! where the idea no doubt is that 
the physical contact between the parties serves to identify 
them, but not specially to transfer guilt from the one to 
the other. 

In the Levitical ritual, all piacula, both public and 
private, refer only to sins committed unwittingly. As 
regards the sin-offering for the people this is quite intelli- 
gible, in accordance with what has just been said ; for if the 
national sin can be brought home to an individual, he of 
course must be punished for it. But the private sin- 
offerings presented by an individual, for sins committed 
unwittingly, and subsequently brought to his knowledge, 
appear to be a modern innovation; before the exile the 
private offences for which satisfaction had to be made at 
the sanctuary were not mortal sins, and gave no room for 
the application of the doctrine of life for life, but were 
atoned for by a money payment, on the analogy of the 
satisfaction given by payment of a fine for the offences of 
man against man (2 Kings xu. 16). And, on the whole, 
while there can be no doubt that public piacula were often 
regarded as surrogates for the execution of an offender, 
who either was not known or whom the community 
hesitated to bring to justice, I very much doubt whether 
private offerings were often viewed in this light; even the 
sacrifice of a child, as we have already seen, was conceived 
rather as the greatest and most exorbitant gift that a 
man can offer.2. The very idea of an execution implies a 
criminal meant nothing more than freeing the community, just in this way, 
from a deadly contagion. 

1 Gen. xlviii. 14; Num. vill. 10; Deut. xxxiv. 9; cf. 2 Kings ii. 13 sqq. 


2 The Greek piacula for murder were certainly not regarded as executions, 
but as cathartic rites. 


424 PIACULA AND LECT. XI. 


public function, and not a private prestation, and so I 
apprehend that the conception of a satisfaction paid to 
divine justice could not well be connected with any but 
public piacula. In these the death of the victim might 
very well pass for the scenic representation of an execution, 
and so represent the community as exonerating itself from 
all complicity in the crime to be atoned for. Looked at in 
this view, atoning rites no doubt served in some measure 
to keep alive a sense of divine justice and of the imperative 
duty of righteousness within the community. But the 
moral value of such scenic representation was probably 
not very great; and where an actual human victim was 
offered, so that the sacrifice practically became an execu- 
tion, and was interpreted as a punishment laid on the com- 
munity by its god, the ceremony was so wholly deficient in 
distributive justice that it was calculated to perplex, rather 
than to educate, the growing sense of morality. 

Christian theologians, looking on the sacrifices of the 
Old Testament as a type of the sacrifice on the cross, and 
interpreting the latter as a satisfaction to divine justice, 
have undoubtedly over-estimated the ethical lessons 
embodied in the Jewish sacrificial system; as may be 
inferred even from the fact that, for many centuries, the 
official theology of the Church was content to interpret 
the death of Christ as a ransom for mankind paid to the 
devil, or as a satisfaction to the divine honour (Anselm), 
rather than as a recognition of the sovereignty of the 
moral law of justice. If Christian theology shows such 
variations in the interpretation of the doctrine of substitu- 
tion, it is obviously absurd to expect to find a consistent 
doctrine on this head in connection with ancient sacrifice ;} 


1 Jewish theology has a great deal to say about the acceptance of the 
merits of the righteous on behalf of the wicked, but very little about atone- 
ment through sacrifice. 


LECT. XI. DIVINE JUSTICE 425 


and it may safely be affirmed that the influence of piacular 
sacrifices, in keeping the idea of divine justice before the 
minds of ancient nations, was very slight compared with 
the influence of the vastly more important idea that the 
gods, primarily as the vindicators of the duties of kinship, 
and then also of the wider morality which ultimately grew 
up on the basis of kinship, preside over the public exercise 
of justice, give oracles for the detection of hidden offences, 
and sanction or demand the execution of guilty tribesmen. 
Of these very real functions of divine justice the piacular 
sacrifice, when interpreted as a scenic execution, is at best 
only an empty shadow. 

Another interpretation of piacular sacrifice, which has 
great prominence in antiquity, is that it purges away 
guilt. The cleansing effect of piacula is mainly associated 
with the application to the persons of the worshippers of 
sacrificial blood or ashes, or of holy water and other thing 
of sacred virtue, including holy herbs and even the fragrant 
smoke of incense. This is a topic which it would be easy 
to illustrate at great length and with a variety of curious 
particulars; but the principle involved is so simple that 
little would be gained by the enumeration of all the 
different substances to which a cathartic value was 
ascribed, either by themselves or as accessories to an 
atoning sacrifice. A main point to be noted is that 
ritual purity has. in principle nothing to do with physical 
cleanliness, though such a connection was ultimately 
established by the common use of water as a means of 
lustration. Primarily, purification means the application 
to the person of some medium which removes a taboo, 
and enables the person purified to mingle freely in the 
ordinary life of his fellows. It is not therefore identical 
with consecration, for the latter often brings special taboos 
with it. And so we find that the ancients used purifica- 


426 CATHARTIC LECT. XL. 
tory rites after as well as before holy functions.’ But as 
the normal life of the member of a religious community 
is in a broad sense a holy life, lived in accordance with 
certain standing precepts of sanctity, and in a constant 
relation to the deity of the community, the main use of 
purificatory rites is not to tone down, to the level of 
ordinary life, the excessive holiness conveyed by contact 
with sacrosanct things, but rather to impart to one who 
has lost it the measure of sanctity that puts him on the 
level of ordinary social life. So much indeed does this 
view of the matter predominate, that among the Hebrews 
all purifications are ordinarily reckoned as purification 
from uncleanness; thus the man who has burned the red 
heifer or carried its ashes, becomes ceremonially unclean, 
though in reality the thing that he has been in contact 
with was not impure but most holy ;? and similarly the 
handling of the Scriptures, according to the Rabbins, 
defiles the hands, 2.e. entails a ceremonial washing. Puri- 
fications, therefore, are performed by the use of any of 
the physical means that re-establish normal relations with 
the deity and the congregation of his worshippers—in 
short, by contact with something that contains and can 
impart a divine virtue. For ordinary purposes the use 
of living water may suffice, for, as we know, there is a 
sacred principle in such water. But the most powerful 
cleansing media are necessarily derived from the body and 
blood of sacrosanct victims, and the forms of purification 
embrace such rites as the sprinkling of sacrificial blood 
or ashes on the person, anointing with holy unguents, or 
fumigation with the smoke of incense, which from early 
times was a favourite accessory to sacrifices. It seems 
probable, however, that the religious value of incense was 


1 See infra, Additional Note B, p. 446 sq., and supra, p. 351 sq. 
2 Num. xix. 8, 10. 


ae "1 


LECT, XI. SACRIFICES 427 


originally independent of animal sacrifice, for frankincense 
was the gum of a very holy species of tree, which was 
collected with religious precautions.!_ Whether, therefore, 
the sacred odour was used in unguents or burned like an 
altar sacrifice, it appears to have owed its virtue, like the 
gum of the samora tree,” to the idea that it was the blood 
of an animate and divine plant. 

It is easy to understand that cathartic media, like 
holiness itself, were of various degrees of intensity, and 
were sometimes used, one after another, in an ascending 
scale. All contact with holy things has a dangerous side ; 
and so, before a man ventures to approach the holiest 
sacraments, he prepares himself by ablutions and other less 
potent cathartic applications. On this principle ancient 
religions developed very complicated schemes of purificatory 
ceremonial, but in all grave cases these culminated in 
piacular sacrifice ; “without shedding of blood there is no 
remission of sin.” 8 

In the most primitive form of the sacrificial idea the 
blood of the sacrifice is not employed to wash away an 
impurity, but to convey to the worshipper a particle of 
holy life. The conception of piacular media as_purifi- 
catory, however, involves the notion that the holy medium 
not only adds something to the worshipper’s life, and 
refreshes its sanctity, but expels from him something that 
is impure. The two views are obviously not inconsistent, 
if we conceive impurity as the wrong kind of life, which 
is dispossessed by inoculation with the right kind. Some 
idea of this sort is, in fact, that which savages associate 
with the uncleanness of taboo, which they commonly 

1Pliny, xii. 54, The right even to see the trees was reserved to 
certain holy families, who, when engaged in harvesting the gum, had 


to abstain from all contact with women and from participation in 


funerals. 
2 Supra, p. 133. > Heb. ix. 22, 


428 CATHARTIC LECT, XI. 


ascribe to the presence, in or about the man, of “ spirits” or 
living agencies ; and the same idea occurs in much higher 
forms of religion, as when, in medieval Christianity, exor- 
cisms to expel devils from the catechumen are regarded as 
a necessary preliminary to baptism. 

Among the Semites the impurities which were thought 
of as cleaving to a man, and making him unfit to mingle 
freely in the social and religious life of his community, 
were of very various kinds, and often of a nature that 
we should regard as merely physical, e.g. uncleanness from 
contact with the dead, from leprosy, from eating forbidden 
food, and so forth. All these are mere survivals of savage 
taboos, and present nothing instructive for the higher 
developments of Semitic religion. They were dealt with, 
where the uncleanness was of a mild form, mainly by 
ablutions; or where the uncleanness was more intense, by 
more elaborate ceremonies involving the use of sacrificial] 
blood, of sacrificial ashes? or the like. Sometimes, as we 
have seen, the Hebrews and Arabs conveyed the impurity 
to a bird, and allowed it to fly away with it? 

There is, however, one form of impurity, viz. that of 
bloodshed, with which important ethical ideas connected 
themselves. Here also the impurity is primarily a physical 
one; it is the actual blood of the murdered man, staining 
the hands of the slayer, or lying unatoned and unburied 
on the ground, that defiles the murderer and his whole 
community, and has to be cleansed away. We have 


1 Lev. xiv. 17, 51. 2Num. xix. 17. 

3 Supra, p. 422. In the Arabian case the woman also threw away a piece 
of camel’s dung, which must also be supposed to have become the receptacle 
for her impurity ; or she cut her nails or plucked out part of her hair (ef. 
Deut. xxi. 12), in which, as specially important parts of the body (supra, p. 
324, note 2), the impure life might be supposed to be concentrated ; or she 
anointed herself with perfume, 7.e. with a holy medium, or rubbed herself 
against an ass, sheep or goat, presumably in order to transfer her unclean- 
ness to the animal. 


Or er 


LECT. XI. SACRIFICES 429 


already seen? that the Semitic religions provide no atone- 
ment for the murderer himself, that can restore him to his 
original place in his tribe, and this principle survives in 
the Hebrew law, which does not admit piacula for mortal 
sins. The ritual idea of cleansing from the guilt of blood 
is only applicable to the community, which disavows the 
act of its impious member, and seeks the restoration of 
its injured holiness by a public sacrificial act. Thus 
in Semitic antiquity the whole ritual conception of the 
purging away of sin is bound up with the notion of the 
solidarity of the body of worshippers—the same notion 
which makes the pious Hebrews confess and lament not 
only their own sins, but the sins of their fathers? When 
the conception that the community, as such, is responsible 
for the maintenance of holiness in all its parts, is combined 
with the thought that holiness is specially compromised by 
erime,—for in early society bloodshed within the kin is the 
typical form, to the analogy of which all other crimes are 
referred,—a solid basis is laid for the conception of the 
religious community as a kingdom of righteousness, which 
lies at the root of the spiritual teaching of the Hebrew 
prophets. The stricter view of divine righteousness which 
distinguishes Hebrew religion from that of the Greeks even 
before the prophetic period, is mainly connected with the 
idea that, so far as individuals are concerned, there is no 
atonement for mortal sin® ‘This principle indeed is 
common to all races in the earliest stages of law and 
religion; but among the Greeks it was early broken 
down, for reasons that have been already explained,’ while 
among the Hebrews it subsisted, without change, till a date 
when the conception of sin was sufficiently developed to 


1 Supra, pp. 359 sq., 423. 
8 Hos. x. 9; Jer. iii. 25; Ezra ix. 7; Ps. evi. 6. 
$ Ex, xxi. 14. ‘ Supra, p. 360 


430 MOURNING IN LECT, XI. 


permit of its being interpreted, as was done by the 
prophets, in a way that raised the religion of Israel 
altogether out of the region of physical ideas with which 
primitive conceptions of holiness are bound up. 

We had occasion a moment ago to glance at the 
subject of confession of sin and lamentation over it. The 
connection of this part of religion with piacular sacrifice 
is important enough to deserve a separate consideration. 

Among the Jews the great Day of Expiation was a 
day of humiliation and penitent sorrow for sin, for which 


RE CN Ae IT 


a strict fast ‘and all the outward signs of deep m ourning 
were prescribed! Similar forms of grief were observed 
in all solemn supplications at the sanctuary, not only by 
the Hebrews but by their neighbours. On such occasions, 
where the mourners assemble at a temple or high place, 
we must, according to the standing rules of ancient 
religion, assume that a piacular sacrifice formed the cul- 
minating point of the service;* and conversely it appears 
probable that forms of mourning, more or less accentuated, 
habitually went with piacular rites, not only when they 
were called for by some great public calamity, but on 
other occasions too. For we have already seen that in 
the annual piacula of the Baal religion | there was also a 
formal act of mourning, which, however, was not an ex- 
pression of penitence for sin, but a lament over the dead 
god. In this last case the origin and primary significance 
of the obligatory lamentation is sufficiently transparent ; 
for the death of the god is originally nothing else than 

1 According to Yoma, viii. 1, washing, unguents, and the use of shoes 
were forbidden. 

21 Sam. vii. 6; Isa. xxxvii. 1; Joel ii. 12 sqq. 3 Isa. xv. 2 sqq. 

* In Hos. vii. 14 the mourners who howl upon their beds are engaged in 
a religious function. And as ordinary mourners lie on the ground, I take it 
that the beds are the couches on which men reclined at a sacrificial banquet 


(Amos ii. 8, vi. 4), which here has the character, not of a joyous feast, but 
of an atoning rite, 


LECT. XI. SACRIFICE 431 
the death of the theanthropic victim, which is bewailed by 
those who assist at the ceremony, exactly as the Todas 
bewail the slaughter of the sacred buffalo. On the same 
principle the Egyptians of Thebes bewailed the death of 
the ram that was annually sacrificed to the god Amen, 
and then clothed the idol in its skin and buried the 
carcase in a sacred coffin? Here the mourning is for the 
death of the sacrosanct victim, which, as the use of the 
skin indicates, represents the god himself. But an act 
of lamentation was not less appropriate in cases where 
the victim was thought of rather as representing a man 
of the kindred of the worshippers; and primarily, as we 
know, the theanthropic victim was equally akin to the 
god and to the sacrificers. 

I think it can be made probable that a form of 
lamentation over the victim was part of the oldest 
sacrificial ritual, and that this is the explanation of such 
rites as the howling (oXoAvy7n) which accompanied Greek 
sacrifices, and in which, as in acts of mourning for the 
dead, women took the chief part. Herodotus (iv. 189) 
was struck with the resemblance between the Greek 
practice and that of the Libyans, a race among whom 
the sacredness of domestic animals was very marked. 
The Libyans killed their sacrifices without bloodshed, 
by throwing them over their huts? and then twisting 
their necks. Where bloodshed is avoided in a sacrifice, 
we may be sure that the life of the victim is regarded 
as human or theanthropic, and the howling can be nothing 
else than an act of mourning. Among the Semites, in like 
manner, the shouting (/allel, tahlil) that accompanied 

1 Supra, p. 299 sq. 
2 Herod. ii. 42. In Egypt an act of mourning went also with other 
sacrifices, notably in the great feast at Busiris ; Herod. ii. 40, 61. 


8 This is analogous to the Paschal sprirkling of blood on the lintel and 
doorposts. 


432 DANCING AND SHOUTING WITH LECT, XL 
sacrifice may probably, in its oldest shape, have been a 
wail over the death of the victim, though it ultimately 
took the form of a chant of praise (Ifallelujah), or, among 
the Arabs, degenerated into a meaningless repetition of the 
word labbaika. For it is scarcely legitimate to separate 
the Semitic ¢ahli from the Greek and Libyan ododAvyn, 
and indeed the roots Sn and 5b (Ar. (JJ,), “to chant 
praises” and “ to howl,” are closely connected.! 

Another rite which admits of a twofold interpretation 
is the sacrificial dance. Dancing is a common expression 
of religious joy, as appears from many passages of the Old 
Testament, but the limping dance of the priests of Baal in 
1 Kings xviii. 26 is associated with forms of mournful 
supplication, and in Syriac the same verb, in different 
conjugations, means “to dance” and “to mourn.” 

In ordinary sacrificial service, the ancient attitude of 
awe at the death of the victim was transformed into one 
of gladness, and the shouting underwent a correspond- 
ing change of meaning.? But piacular rites continued 

1 On this topic consult, but with caution, Movers, Phoen. i. 246 sq. The 
Arabic ahaila, tahiil, is primarily connected with the slaughter of the victim 
(supra, p. 340). Meat that has been killed in the name of an idol is ma 
ohilla lighairt "llah, and the tahlil includes (1) the bismillah of the 
sacrificer, (2) the shouts of the congregation accompanying this act, (3) by 
a natural extension, all religious shouting. If, now, we note that the 
bismillah is the form by which the sacrificer excuses his bold act, and that 


tahlil also means ‘‘shrinking back in terror” (see Noldeke in ZDMG. 
xli. 723), we can hardly doubt that the shouting was originally not joyous, 


but an expression of awe and anguish. The derivation of cp! from Ss ‘ 


the new moon (Lagarde, Orientalia, ii. 19; Snouck-Hurgronje, Het mek- 
kaansche Feest, p. 75), is tempting, but must be given up. Compare on the 
whole matter, Wellh. p. 110 sqq. Cf. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 180, note 4. 

2 This transition was probably much easier than it seems to us; for 
shouting in mourning and shouting in joy seem both to be primarily 
directed to drive away evil influences. Of course, men, like children, are 
noisy when they are glad, but the conventional shrill cries of women in the 
East (zaghdrit) are not natural expressions of joy, and do not differ materi- 
ally from the sound made in wailing. The Hebrew word rinna is used 
both of shouts of joy and of the ory of suppliants at a religious fast (Jer. 


LECT, XI. SACRIFICE 433 


to be conducted with signs of mourning, which were 
interpreted, as we have seen, sometimes as a lamenta- 
tion for the death of the god, and sometimes as 
forms of penitent supplication, and deprecation of divine 
wrath. 

That feelings of contrition find an expression in acts 
of mourning, is an idea so familiar to us that at first sight 

it seems to need no explanation; but a little reflection will 
- correct this impression, and make it appear by no means 
unreasonable to suppose that the forms of mourning 
observed in supplicatory rites were not primarily expres- 
sions of sorrow for sin, or lamentable appeals to the com- 
passion of the deity, but simply the obligatory wailing for 
the death of a kindred victim. The forms prescribed are 
identical with those used in mourning for the dead; and 
if it be urged that this is merely an expression of the 
inost pungent grief, I reply that we have already found 
reason to be chary in assuming that certain acts are 
natural expressions of sorrow, and to recognise that the 
customs observed in lamentation for the dead had originally 
a very definite meaning, and could not become general ex- 
pressions of grief till that meaning was forgotten. And it 
is surely easier to suppose that the ancient rites of lamenta- 
tion for the victim changed their sense, when men fell out 
of touch with the original meaning of them, than that they 
were altogether dropped for a time, and then resumed with 
a new meaning. , 

Again, the idea that the gods have a kindred feeling with 
their worshippers, and are touched with compassion when 
they see them to be miserable, is no doubt familiar even to 
early religions. But formal acts of worship in antiquity, 


xiv. 12). In Arabic the root is used mainly of plaintive cries, as of 
mourning women. 
1 Supra, p. 822 sq., p. 336 sq. 
28 


434 FASTING WITH LECT. XL 


as we have seen from our analysis of sacrificial rites, are 
directed, not merely to appeal to the sentiment of the deity, 
but to lay him under a social obligation. Even in the 
theology of the Rabbins, penitence atones only for light 
offences, all grave offences demanding also. a material 
prestation.! If this is the view of later Judaism, after all 
‘that had been taught by the prophets as to the worthless- 
ness of material offerings, in the eyes of a God who looks 
at the heart, it is hardly to be thought that in heathen 
religions elaborate forms of mourning and supplication 
were nothing more than appeals to divine compassion. 
And, in fact, there is no doubt that some of the forms 
which we are apt to take as expressions of intense grief or 
self-abasement before the god, had originally quite another 
meaning. For example, when the worshippers gash their 
own flesh in rites of supplication, this is not an appeal to 
the divine compassion, but a purely physical means of 
establishing a blood-bond with the god.2 Again, the usage 
of religious fasting is commonly taken as a sign of sorrow, 
the worshippers being so distressed at the alienation of 
their god that they cannot eat; but there are very strong 
reasons for believing that, in the strict Oriental form in 
which total abstinence from meat and drink is prescribed, 
fasting is primarily nothing more than a preparation for 
the sacramental eating of holy flesh. Some savage nations 
not only fast, but use strong purges before venturing to eat 
holy meat ;* similarly the Harranians fasted on the eighth 
of Nisan, and then broke their fast on mutton, at the same 
time offering sheep as holocausts;* the modern Jews fast 
from ten in the morning before eating the Passover; and 

1 Yoma, viii. 8, Mbp nyway Sy mips nawn. 

2 Supra, p. 321 sqq. ’ Thomson, Masai Land, p. 480. 

‘ Fihrist, p. 322. In Egypt a fast preceded the sacrificial meal at the 


great feast of Busiris, where the victim is clearly theanthropic, Herod. ii. 
40, 61. 


LECT. XI. SACRIFICE — 435 


even a modern Catholic must come to the communion with 
an empty stomach. On the whole, then, the conclusion 
seems to be legitimate, that the ritual of penitent con- 
fession and humiliation for sin follows the same law that 
we have found to hold good in other departments of 
ritual observance; the original interpretation turns on a 
physical conception of holiness, and it is only gradually 
and incompletely that physical ideas give way to ethical 
interpretation. 

To the account that has been given of various aspects 
of the atoning efficacy of sacrifice, and of ritual observances 
that go with sacrifice, I have still to add some notice of 
a very remarkable series of ceremonies, in which the skin 
of the sacrosanct victim plays the chief part. In Nilus’s 
sacrifice the skin and hair of the victim are eaten up like 
the rest of the carcase, and in some piacula, eg. the 
Leyitical red heifer, the victim is burned skin and all. 
Usually, however, it is flayed; and in later rituals, where 
rules are laid down determining whether the skin shall 
belong to the sacrificer or be part of the priest’s fee, the 
hide is treated merely as an article of some commercial 
value which has no sacred significance.! But we have seen 
that in old times all parts of the sacrosanct victim were 
intensely holy, even down to the offal and excrement, and 
whatever was not eaten or burned was used for other 
sacred purposes, and had the force of a charm. The skin, 
in particular, is used in antique rituals either to clothe 
the idol or to clothe the worshippers. The meaning 


1 By the Levitical law (Lev. vii. 8) the skin of the holocaust goes to the 
ministrant priest ; in other cases it must be inferred that it was retained by 
the owner. In the Carthaginian tariffs the usage varies, one temple giving 
the hides of victims to the priests and another to the owner of the sacrifice 
(CIS. Nos. 165, 167). AtSippar in Babylonia the sacrificial dues paid to 
the priest included the hide (Beitrage zur Assyriologie, vol. i. (1890) pp. 
274, 286). 


436 SKIN OF LECT. XI. 


of both these rites was sufficiently perspicuous at the 
stage of religious development in which the god, his 
worshippers, and the victim were all members of one 
kindred. 

As regards the draping of the idol or sacred stone in the 
skin, it will be remembered that in Lecture V. we came to 
the conclusion that in most cases sacred stones are not 
naturally holy, but are arbitrary erections which become 
holy because the god consents to dwell in them. We also 
find a widespread idea, persisting even in the ritual of the 
Jewish Day of Atonement, that the altar (which is only a 
more modern form of the sacred stone) requires to be con- 
secrated with blood, and periodically reconsecrated in the 
same way.! In fact it is the sacred blood that makes the 
stone holy and a habitation of divine life; as in all the 
other parts of ritual, man does not begin by persuading 
his god to dwell in the stone, but by a theurgic process he 
actually brings divine life to the stone. All sanctuaries 
are consecrated by a theophany; but in the earliest times 
the sacrifice is itself a rudimentary theophany, and the 
place where sacred blood has once been shed is the fittest 
place to shed it again. From this point of view it is 
natural, not only to pour blood upon the altar-idol, but to 
anoint it with sacred fat, to fix upon it the heads and horns 
of sacrifices, and so forth. All these things are done in 
various parts of the world,? and when the sacred stone is 
on the way to become an idol, and primarily an animal- 
idol, it is peculiarly appropriate to dress it in the skin of 
the divine victim. 

On the other hand, it is equally appropriate that the 

1 Bzek. xliii, 18 sqgg.; Lev. viii. 15; Ezek. xlv. 18 sgg.; Lev. 
xvi. 33. 
* The heads of oxen are common symbols on Greek altars, and this is 


only a modern surrogate for the actual heads of victims. The horns of the 
Semitic altar have perhaps the same origin. 


LECT, XI, THE VICTIM 437 


worshipper should dress himself in the skin of a victim, 
and so, as it were, envelop himself in its sanctity. To 
rude nations dress is not merely a physical comfort, but a 
fixed part of social religion, a thing by which a man con- 
stantly bears on his body the token of his religion, and 
which is itself a charm and a means of divine protection. 
Among African nations, where the sacredness of domestic 
animals is still acknowledged, one of the few purposes 
for which a beast may be killed is to get its skin as a 
cloak; and in the Book of Genesis (iii. 21) the primitive 
coat of skin is given to the first men by the Deity Himself. 
Similarly Herodotus, when he speaks of the sacrifices and 
worship of the Libyans,! is at once led on to observe that 
the egis or goat-skin, worn by the statues of Athena, is 
nothing else than the goat-skin, fringed with thongs, which 
was worn by the Libyan women; the inference implies 
that it was a sacred dress.2 When the dress of sacrificial 
skin, which at once declared a man’s religion and his sacred 
kindred, ceased to be used in ordinary life, it was still 
retained in holy and especially in piacular functions. We 
have several examples of this within the Semitic field: the 
Assyrian Dagon-worshipper who offers the mystic fish- 
sacrifice to the Fish-god draped in a fish-skin; the old 
Phoenician sacrifice of game by men clothed in the skin of 


1 Herod. iv. 188 sqq.; that the victims were goats is suggested by the 
context, but becomes certain by comparison of Hippocrates, ed, Littré, 
vi. 356. 

2The thongs correspond to the fringes on the garment prescribed by 
Jewish law, which had a sacred significance (Num. xv. 38 sgq.). One of 
the oldest forms of the fringed garment is probably the raht or hau/f, a 
girdle or short kilt of skin slashed into thongs, which was worn by Arab 
girls, by women in their courses, and also, it is said, by worshippers at the 
Caaba. From this primitive garment are derived the thongs and girdles 
with lappets that appear as amulets among the Arabs (barim, morassa‘a ; 
the latter is pierced, and another thong passed through it); compare the 
magical thongs of the Luperci, cut from the skin of the piaculum, whose 
touch cured sterility, 


438 THEOLOGICAL LECT. XI 
their prey; the Cyprian sacrifice of a sheep to the Sheep- 
goddess, in which sheep-skins are worn.! Similar examples 
are afforded by the Dionysiac mysteries and other Greek 
rites, and by almost every rude religion; while in later 
cults the old rite survives at least in the religious use of 
animal masks.2, When worshippers present themselves at 
the sanctuary, already dressed in skins of the sacred kind, 
the meaning of the ceremony is that they come to worship 
as kinsmen of the victim, and so also of the god. But 
when the fresh skin of the victim is applied to the 
worshipper in the sacrifice, the idea is rather an impart- 
ing to him of the sacred virtue of its life. Thus in 
piacular and cathartic rites the skin of the sacrifice is 
used in a way quite similar to the use of the blood, but 
dramatically more expressive of the identification of the 
worshipper’s life with that of the victim. In Greek 
piacula the man on whose behalf the sacrifice was per- 
formed simply put his foot on the skin («@dsov); at 
Hierapolis the pilgrim put the head and feet over his own 
head while he knelt on the skin;* in certain late Syrian 
rites a boy is initiated by a sacrifice in which his feet are 
clothed in slippers made of the skin of the sacrifice. These 
rites do not appear to have suggested any idea, as to the 
meaning of piacular sacrifice, different from those that 
have already come before us; but as the skin of a sacri- 
fice is the oldest form of a sacred garment, appropriate to 
the performance of holy functions, the figure of a “robe 
of righteousness,” which is found both in the Old Testa- 


1 Supra, pp. 293, 310; and Additional Notes F and G. Note also that 
the hereditary priests of the Palmetum were dressed in skins (Strabo, xvi. 
4.18), Cf. the ‘‘girdle,” or rather ‘‘kilt of skin,” worn by the prophet 
Elijah (2 Kings i. 8). 

2 Such masks were used by the Arabs of Nejran in rites which the Bishop 
Gregentius, in the laws he made for his flock (chap. xxxiv.), denounces as 
heathenish (Boissonade, Anecd. Gr. vol. v.). 

8 Dea Syria, lv. * Actes of the Leyden Congress, ii. 1. 336 (361). 


a a 


LECT, XI. METAPHORS 439 


ment and in the New, and still supplies one of the 
commonest theological metaphors, may be ultimately traced 
back to this source. 

On the whole it is apparent, from the somewhat tedious 
discussion which I have now brought to a close, that the 
various aspects in which atoning rites presented them- 
selves to ancient worshippers have supplied a variety of 
religious images which passed into Christianity, and still 
have currency. Redemption, substitution, purification, 
atoning blood, the garment of righteousness, are all terms 
which in some sense go back to antique ritual. But in 
ancient religion all these terms are very vaguely defined ; 
they indicate impressions produced on the mind of the 
worshipper by features of the ritual, rather than formul- 
ated ethico-dogmatical ideas; and the attempt to find in 
them anything as precise and definite as the notions 
attached to the same words by Christian theologians is 
altogether illegitimate. The one point that comes out clear 
and strong is that the fundamental idea of ancient sacri- 
fice is sacramental communion, and that all atoning rites 
are ultimately to be regarded as owing their efficacy to a 
communication of divine life to the worshippers, and to 
the establishment or confirmation of a living bond between 
them and their god. In primitive ritual this conception 
is grasped in a merely physical and mechanical shape, as 
indeed, in primitive life, all spiritual and ethical ideas are 
still wrapped up in the husk of a material embodiment. 
To free the spiritual truth from the husk was the great 
task that lay before the ancient religions, if they were to 
maintain the right to continue to rule the minds of men. 
That some progress in this direction was made, especially 
in Israel, appears from our examination. But on the 
whole it is manifest that none of the ritual systems of 
antiquity was able by mere natural development to 


mysticism. 


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ADDITIONAL NOTES 


conned ancmere 


ADDITIONAL NOTE A (p. 138) 
GODS, DEMONS, AND PLANTS OR ANIMALS 


Tue object of this note is to consider some difficulties that 
may be felt with regard to the argument in the text. 

1. The importance which I have attached to Arabian super- 
stitions about the jinn, as affording a clue to the origin of local 
sanctuaries, may appear to be excessive when it is observed that 
the facts are almost all drawn from one part of the Semitic field. 
What evidence is there, it may be asked, that these Arabian 
superstitions are part of the common belief of the Semitic race? 
To this I reply, in the first place, that the Arabian conception 
proves upon analysis to have nothing peculiar about it. It is 
the ordinary conception of all primitive savages, and involves 
ideas that only belong to the savage mind. To suppose that it 
originated in Arabia, for special and local reasons, after the 
separation of the other Semites, is therefore to run in the teeth 
of all probability. Again, the little we do know about the 
goblins of the Northern Semites is in full agreement with the 
Arabian facts. The demons were banished from Hebrew religion, 
and hardly appear in the Old Testament except in poetic imagery. 
But the oy or hairy ones, the nS or nocturnal goblin, are 
exactly like the Arabian jinn (Wellhausen, p. 148). 

The main point, however, is that the savage view of nature, 
which ascribes to plants and animals discourse of reason, and super- 
natural or demoniac attributes, can be shown to have prevailed 
among the Northern Semites as well as the Arabs. The savage 
point of view is constantly found to survive, in connection with 
practices of magic, after it has been superseded in religion proper ; 


and the superstitions of the vulgar in modern civilised countries are 
441 


442 DEMONIAC PLANTS NOTE A. 


—_— 


not much more advanced than those of the rudest nations. So too 
among the Semites, magical rites and vulgar superstitions are not 
so much survivals from the higher official heathenism of the 
great sanctuaries as from a lower and more primitive stage of 
belief, which the higher forms of heathen worship overshadowed 
but did not extinguish. And the view of nature that pervades 
Semitic magic is precisely that savage view which we have found 
to underlie the Arabian belief in the jinn. Of the magical 
practices of the ancient Syrians, which persisted long after the 
introduction of Christianity, some specimens are preserved in the 
Canons of Jacob of Edessa, edited in Syriac by Lagarde, Rel. sar. 
eccl. ant. (Leipz. 1856), and translated by Kayser, Die Canones 
Jacob’s von Edessa (Leipz. 1886). One of these, used in cases of 
sickness, was to dig up the root of a certain kind of thorn called 
‘‘ischiac,” and make an offering to it, eating and drinking beside 
the root, which was treated as a guest at the feast (Qu. 38). 
Another demoniac plant of the Northern Semites is the Baaras, 
described by Josephus, B. J. vii. 6. 3, which flees from those who 
try to grasp it, and whose touch is death so long as it is rooted in 
the ground. This plant seems to be the mandrake (Ar. yabrih), 
about which the Arabs tell similar stories, and which even the 
ancient Germans thought to be inhabited by a spirit. When the 
plants in Jotham’s parable speak and act like men, this is mere 
personification ; but the dispute of the mallow and the mandrake, 
which Maimonides relates from the forged Nabatwan Agriculture 
(Chwolsohn, Ssabier, ii. 459, 914), and which prevents the mallow 
from supplying her prophet with responses, is a genuine piece 
of old Semitic superstition. In matters of this sort we cannot 
doubt that even a forger correctly represents popular beliefs. As 
regards animals, the demoniac character of the serpent in the 
Garden of Eden is unmistakable; the serpent is not a mere 
temporary disguise of Satan, otherwise its punishment would be 
meaningless.! The practice of serpent charming, repeatedly 
referred to in the Old Testament, is also connected with the 
demoniac character of the creature ; and in general the idea that 
animals can be constrained by spells, e.g. prevented from injuring 
flocks and vineyards (Jacob of Ed., Qu. 46), rests on the same 


1 So in the legends of Syriac saints, the proper form of Satan, which he 
is compelled to resume when met with the name of Christ or the sign of the 
cross. is that of a black snake (Mar Kardagh, ed. Abbeloos, p. 39; Hoff- 
mann, Syr. Akten, p. 76). 


NOTE A. SYRIAN SUPERSTITIONS 443 


view, for the power of wizards is over demons and beings that 
are subject to the demons. 

One of the most curious of the Syrian superstitions is as 
follows:—When caterpillars infest a garden, the maidens are 
assembled ; a single caterpillar is taken, and one of the girls is 
constituted its mother. The insect is then bewailed and buried, 
and the mother is conducted to the place where the other cater- 
pillars are, amidst lamentations for her bereavement. The whole 
of the caterpillars will then disappear (op. cit. Qu. 44). Here itis 
clearly assumed that the insects understand and are impressed by 
the tragedy got up for their benefit. The Syriac legends of Tur 
‘Abdin, collected by Prym and Socin (Gott. 1881), are full of 
beasts with demoniac powers. In these stories each kind of beast 
forms a separate organised community; they speak and act like 
men, but have supernatural powers, and close relations to the jinn 
that also occur in the legends. In conclusion, it may be observed 
that the universal Semitic belief in omens and guidance given 
by animals belongs to the same range of ideas. Omens are not 
blind tukens ; the animals know what they tell to men. 

2. If the argument in the text is correct, it may be asked why 
there are not direct and convincing evidences of Semitic totemism. 
You argue, it may be said, that traces of the old savage view of 
nature, which corresponds to totemism, are still clearly visible in 
the Semitic view of demons. But in savage nations that view is 
habitually conjoined with the belief that one kind of demon— 
or, more correctly, one kind of plants or animals endowed with 
demoniac qualities—is allied by kinship with each kindred of 
men. How does this square with the Arabian facts, in which all 
demons or demoniac animals habitually appear as man’s enemies ? 
The general answer to this difficulty is that totems, or friendly 
demoniac beings, rapidly develop into gods when men rise above 
pure savagery ; whereas unfriendly beings, lying outside the circle 
of man’s organised life, are not directly influenced by the social 
progress, and retain their primitive characteristics unchanged. 
When men deem themselves to be of the same blood with a 
particular animal kind, every advance in their way of thinking 
about themselves reacts on their ideas about the sacred animals. 
When they come to think of their god as the ancestor of their 
race, they must also think of him as the ancestor of their totem 
animals, and, so far as our observation goes, they tend to figure 
him as having animal form. The animal god concentrates on his 


444 SEMITIO NOTE A, 


own person the respect that used to be paid to all animals of the 
totem kind, or at least the respect paid to them is made to depend 
on the worship he receives. Finally, the animal god, who, as a 
demoniac being, has many human attributes, is transformed into 
an anthropomorphic god, and his animal connections fall quite 
into the background. But nothing of this sort can happen to the 
demoniac animals that are left outside, and not brought into 
fellowship with men. They remain as they were, till the progress 
of enlightenment—a slow progress among the mass of any race— 
gradually strips them of their supernatural attributes. Thus it is 
natural that the belief in hostile demons of plant or animal kinds 
should survive long after the friendly kinds have given way to 
individual gods, whose original totem associations are in great 
measure obliterated. At the stage which even the rudest Semitic 
peoples had reached when they first become known to us, it would 
be absurd to expect to find examples of totemism pure and simple. 
What we may expect to find is the fragmentary survival of totem 
ideas, in the shape of special associations between certain kinds of 
animals on the one hand, and certain tribes or religious commun- 
ities and their gods on the other hand. And of evidence of this 
kind there is, we shall see, no lack in Semitic antiquity. For the 
present I will only cite some direct evidences of kinship or 
brotherhood between human communities and animal kinds. 
Ibn al-Mojawir relates that when the B. Harith, a tribe of South 
Arabia, find a dead gazelle, they wash it, wrap it in cerecloths 
and bury it, and the whole tribe mourns for it seven days 
(Sprenger, Postrouten, p. 151). The animal is buried like a man, 
and mourned for as a kinsman.! Among the Arabs of Sinai the 
wabr (the coney of the Bible) is the brother of man, and it is said 
that he who eats his flesh will never see father and mother again, 
In the Harranian mysteries the worshippers acknowledged dogs, 
ravens and ants as their brothers (fihrist, p. 326, 1. 27). At 
Baalbek, the yevvaios, or ancestral god of the town, was worshipped in 
the form of a lion (Damascius, Vit. Isid. § 208 ; cf. Sya 43, “leon- 
topodion,” Low, Aram. Pflanzennamen, p. 406; G. Hoffmann, Phoen. 


1 Similarly we are told by Sohaili in his com. on Ibn Hisham (ed. Wiist, 
ii. 41 sq.) of more than one instance in which an orthodox Muslim wrapped 
a dead snake in a piece of his cloak and buried it. ‘Omar 11. is said to have 
done so. In this case the snake was “a believing Jinni,” an explanation 
that seems to be devised to justify an act of primitive superstition ; cf. 
Damiri, i. 233. 


NOTE A. TOTEMISM 445 


Inschr. 1889, p. 27). On the banks of the Euphrates, according 
to Mir. Ausc. 149 sq., there was found a species of small serpents 
that attacked foreigners, but did not molest natives, which is just 
what a totem animal is supposed to do. 

3. If the oldest sanctuaries of the gods were originally haunts of 
a multiplicity of jinn, or of animals to which demoniac attributes 
were ascribed, we should expect to find, even in later times, some 
trace of the idea that the holy place is not inhabited by a single 
god, but by a plurality of sacred denizens. If the relation between 
the worshipping community and the sanctuary was formed in the 
totem state of thought, when the sacred denizens were still verit- 
able animals, all animals of the sacred species would multiply 
unmolested in the holy precincts, and the individual god of the 
sanctuary, when such a being came to be singled out from the 
indeterminate plurality of totem creatures, would still be the 
father and protector of all animals of his own kind. And accord- 
ingly we do find that Semitic sanctuaries gave shelter to various 
species of sacred animals,—the doves of Astarte, the gazelles of 
Tabala and Mecca, and so forth. But, apart from this, we may 
expect to find traces of vague plurality in the conception of the 
godhead as associated with special spots, to hear not so much of 
the god as of the gods of a place, and that not in the sense of 
a definite number of clearly individualised deities, but with the 
same indefiniteness as characterises the conception of the jinn. 
I am inclined to think that this is the idea which underlies the 
Hebrew use of the plural obs, and the Phenician use of obx, 
in a singular sense, on which cf. Hoffmann, op. cit. p. 17 sqg. 
Merely to refer this to primitive polytheism, as is sometimes done, 
does not explain how the plural form is habitually used to desig- 
nate a single deity. Butif the Hloham of a place originally meant 
all its sacred denizens, viewed collectively as an indeterminate 
sum of indistinguishable beings, the transition to the use of the 
plural in a singular sense would follow naturally, as soon as this 
indeterminate conception gave way to the conception of an indi- 
vidual god of the sanctuary. Further, the original indeterminate 
plurality of the Hlohtm appears in the conception of angels as 
Bné Elohim, “sons of Elohim,” which, according to linguistic 
analogy, means “‘ beings of the Elohim kind.” In the Old Testa- 
ment the “sons of God” form the heavenly court, and ordinarily 
when an angel appears on earth he appears alone and on a special 
mission. But, in some of the oldest Hebrew traditions, angels 


446 HOLINESS NOTE B 


frequent holy places, such as Bethel and Mahanaim, when they 
have no message to deliver (Gen. xxviii. 12, xxxii. 2). That 
the angels, as “sons of God,” form part of the old Semitic 
mythology, is clear from Gen. vi. 2, 4, for the sons of God who 
contract marriages with the daughters of men are out of place in 
the religion of the Old Testament, and the legend must have been 
taken over from a lower form of faith; perhaps it was a local 
legend connected with Mount Hermon (B. Enoch vi. 6; Hilary 
on Ps. cxxxiii.). Ewald (Lehre der Bibel, ii. 283) rightly observes 
that in Gen. xxxii. 28-30 the meaning is that an angel has no 
name, 7.¢. no distinctive individuality ; he is simply one of a class ; 
cf. p. 126, note, supra. Yet in wrestling with him Jacob wrestles 
with ods (cf. Hos. xii. 4). 

That the Arabic jinn is not a loan-word, as has sometimes 
been supposed, is shown by Noldeke, ZDMG. xli. 717. 


ADDITIONAL NOTE B (p. 153) 
HOLINESS, UNCLEANNESS AND TABOO 


Various parallels between savage taboos, and Semitic rules of 
holiness and uncleanness, will come before us from time to time ; 
but it may be useful to bring together at this point some detailed 
evidences that the two are in their origin indistinguishable. 

Holy and unclean things have this in common, that in both 
cases certain restrictions lie on men’s use of and contact with 
them, and that the breach of these restrictions involves super- 
natural dangers. The difference between the two appears, not in 
their relation to man’s ordinary life, but in their relation to the 
gods. Holy things are not free to man, because they pertain to 
the gods; uncleanness is shunned, according to the view taken in 
the higher Semitic religions, because it is hateful to the god, and 
therefore not to be tolerated in his sanctuary, his worshippers, or 
his land. But that this explanation is not primitive can hardly 
be doubted, when we consider that the acts that cause uncleanness 
are exactly the same which among savage nations place a man 
under taboo, and that these acts are often involuntary, and often 
innocent, or even necessary to society. The savage, accordingly, 


NOTE B. UNCLEANNESS 447 


imposes a taboo on a woman in childbed, or during her courses, 
and on the man who touches a corpse, not out of any regard for 
the gods, but simply because birth and everything connected with 
the propagation of the species on the one hand, and disease and 
death on the other, seem to him to involve the action of super- 
human agencies of a dangerous kind. If he attempts to explain, 
he does so by supposing that on these occasions spirits of deadly 
power are present ; at all events the persons involved seem to him 
to be sources of mysterious danger, which has all the characters 
of an infection, and may extend to other people unless due pre- 
cautions are observed, This is not scientific, but it is perfectly 
intelligible, and forms the basis of a consistent system of practice ; 
whereas, when the rules of uncleanness are made to rest on the 
will of the gods, they appear altogether arbitrary and meaningless, 
The affinity of such taboos with laws of uncleanness comes out 
most clearly when we observe that uncleanness is treated like a 
contagion, which has to be washed away or otherwise eliminated 
by physical means. Take the rules about the uncleanness pro- 
duced by the carcases of vermin in Lev. xi. 32 sqq.; whatever 
they touch must be washed ; the water itself is then unclean, and 
can propagate the contagion; nay, if the defilement affect an — 
(unglazed) earthen pot, it is supposed to sink into the pores, and 
cannot be washed out, so that the pot must be broken. Rules 
like this have nothing in common with the spirit of Hebrew 
religion; they can only be remains of a primitive superstition, 
like that of the savage who shuns the blood of uncleanness, and 
such like things, as a supernatural and deadly virus. The 
antiquity of the Hebrew taboos, for such they are, is shown by 
the way in which many of them reappear in Arabia; cf. for 
example Deut. xxi. 12, 13, with the Arabian ceremonies for 
removing the impurity of widowhood (supra, pp. 422, 428, n.). 
In the Arabian form the ritual is of purely savage type ; the danger 
to life that made it unsafe for a man to marry the woman was 
transferred in the most materialistic way to an animal, which it 
was believed generally died in consequence, or to a bird. So too 
in the law for cleansing the leper (Lev. xiv. 4 sqg.) the impurity 
is transferred to a bird, which flies away with it ; compare also the 
ritual of the scape-goat. So, again, the impurity of menstruation 
was recognised by all the Semites,! as in fact it is by all primitive 


1The precept of the Coran, ii, 222, rests on ancient practice; see 
Baidawi on the passage, Hamdsa, p. 107, last verse, and dgh. xvi. 27, 31, 


448 UNCLEANNESS NOTE B 


and ancient peoples. Now among savages this impurity is dis- 
tinctly connected with the idea that the blood of the menses is 
dangerous to man, and even the Romans held that “ nihil facile 
reperlatur mulierum profluuio magis mirificum,” or more full of 
deadly qualities (Pliny, H. NV. vii. 64). Similar superstitions are 
current with the Arabs, a great variety of supernatural powers 
attaching themselves to a woman in this condition (Cazwini, i. 365). 
Obviously, therefore, in this case the Semitic taboo is exactly like 
the savage one; it has nothing to do with respect for the gods, 
but springs from mere terror of the supernatural influences 
associated with the woman’s physical condition. That unclean 
things are tabooed on account of their inherent supernatural 
powers or associations, appears further from the fact that just these 
things are most powerful in magic ; menstruous blood in particular 
is one of the strongest of charms in most countries, and so it was 
among the Arabs (Cazwini, wt supra). Wellhausen has shown 
how closely the ideas of amulet and ornament are connected 
(Heid.p.164 sq.), but has not brought out the equally characteristic 
fact that unclean things are not less potent. Such amulets are 
called by the Arabs tanjis, monajjasa; and it is explained that 
the heathen Arabs used to tie unclean things, dead men’s 
bones and menstruous rags, upon children, to avert the jinn 
and the evil eye (Camus, s.v.); cf. Jacob of Edessa, op. cit 
Qu. 43. 

We have seen, in the example of the swine, that prohibitions 
against using, and especially eating, certain animals belong in the 
higher Semitic religions to a sort of doubtful ground between the 
unclean and the holy. This topic cannot be fully elucidated till 
we come to speak of sacrifice, when it will appear probable that 
most of these restrictions, if not all of them, are parallel to the 
taboos which totemism lays on the use of sacred animals as food. 
Meantime it may be observed that such prohibitions, like those 
For the Syrian heathen, Fihrist, p. 319, 1. 18. According to Wahidi, 
Asbaéb, women in their courses were not allowed to remain in the house, 
which is a common savage rule. According to Mofaddal al-Dabbi, Amthal, 
p. 24, 1. 20, the ‘artk was isolated from her people in a hut, which, as may 
be inferred from the story, was on the outskirts of the hamlet or encamp- 
ment. The same custom is indicated in the legend of the fall of Hatra, 
Tab. i, 829. 8. Girls at their first menstruation seem to have been strictly 


confined to a hut or tent; see the Zisdén on the term mo'sir. This is 
also common all over the world. Widows were similarly confined ; see the 


Lexx s.v. endo See Goldziher, Abhand. i. 207 sq. 


NOTE B. AND ‘TABOO 449 


that have been already considered, manifest their savage origin 
by the nature of the supernatural sanction attached to them. As 
the elk clan of the Omahas believe that they cannot eat the elk 
without boils breaking out on their bodies, so the Syrians, with 
whom fish were sacred to Atargatis, thought that if they ate a 
sprat or an anchovy they were visited with ulcers, swellings and 
wasting disease.1 In both cases the punishment of the impious 
act is not a divine judgment, in our sense of that word, but 
flows directly from the malignant influences resident in the for- 
bidden thing, which, so to speak, avenges itself on the offender. 
With this it agrees that the more notable unclean animals 
possess magical powers; the swine, for example, which the 
Saracens as well as the Hebrews and Syrians refused to eat 
(Sozomen, vi. 38), supplies many charms and magical medicines 
(Cazwini, i. 393). 

The irrationality of laws of uncleanness, from the standpoint of 
spiritual religion or even of the higher heathenism, is so manifest, 
that they must necessarily be looked on as having survived from 
an earlier form of faith and of society. And this being so, I do 
not see how any historical student can refuse to class them with 
savage taboos. The attempts to explain them otherwise, which 
are still occasionally met with, seem to be confined to speculative 
writers, who have no knowledge of the general features of thought 
_ and belief in rude societies. As regards holy things in the proper 
sense of the word, 7.e. such as are directly connected with the 
worship and service of the gods, more difficulty may reasonably 
be felt ; for many of the laws of holiness may seem to have a good 
and reasonable sense even in the higher forms of religion, and to 
find their sufficient explanation in the habits and institutions of 
advanced societies. At present the most current view of the 
meaning of restrictions on man’s free use of holy things is that 
holy things are the god’s property, and I have therefore sought 
(supra, p. 142 sqq.) to show that the idea of property does not 
suffice to explain the facts of the case. A man’s property consists 
of things to which he has an exclusive right ; but in holy things 
the worshippers have rights as well as the gods, though their rights 
are subject to definite restrictions. Again, an owner is bound to 
respect other people’s property while he preserves his own; but 


1 Menander, ap. Porph., De Abst. iv. 15; Plut., De Superst. x.; Selden, 
De Diss Syris, Synt. ii. Cap. 3. For savage parallels, see Frazer, T'otemism 
and Exogamy, i. 16 sq. (cf. iv. 291, 294). 


29 


450 HOLINESS NOTE B. 


the principle of holiness, as appears in the law of asylum, can be 
used to override the privileges of human ownership. In this 
respect holiness exactly resembles taboo. The notion that certain 
things are taboo to a god or a chief means only that he, as the 
stronger person, and not only stronger but invested with super- 
natural power, and so very dangerous to offend, will not allow 
anyone else to meddle with them. To bring the taboo into force 
it is not necessary that there should be prior possession on the 
part of god or chief; other people’s goods may become taboo, and 
be lost to their original owner, merely by contact with the sacred 
person or with sacred things. Even the ground on which a king 
of Tahiti trod became taboo, just as the place of a theophany was 
thenceforth holy among the Semites. Nor does it follow that 
because a thing is taboo from the use of man, it is therefore in any 
real sense appropriated to the use of a god or sacred person; the 
fundamental notion is merely that it is not safe for ordinary 
people to use it; it has, so to speak, been touched by the infection 
of holiness, and so becomes a new source of supernatural danger. 
In this respect, again, the rules of Semitic holiness show clear 
marks of their origin in a system of taboo; the distinction that 
holy things are employed for the use of the gods, while unclean 
things are simply forbidden to man’s use, is not consistently 
carried out, and there remain many traces of the view that holi- 
ness is contagious, just as uncleanness is, and that things which 
are to be retained for ordinary use must be kept out of the way 
of the sacred infection. Of things undoubtedly holy, but not 
in any way used for the divine service, the consecrated camels 
of the Arabs afford a good example. But in old Israel also 
we find something of the same kind. By the later law (Lev. 
xxvii. 27) the firstling of a domestic animal that could not be 
sacrificed, and which the owner did not care to redeem, was sold 
for the benefit of the sanctuary, but by the old law (Ex. xiii. 13, 
xxxiv. 20) its neck was broken—a less humane rule than that 
of Arabia, where animals tabooed from human use were allowed 
to run free. 

Of the contagiousness of holiness there are many traces exactly 
similar to taboo. Among the Syrians the dove was most holy, 
and he who touched it became taboo for a day (Dea Syria, liv.). 
In Isa. lxv. 5 the heathen mystw warn the bystander not to 


1 This parallel shows that the Arabian institution is not a mere de- 
generate form of an older consecration to positive sacred uses. 


NOTE B. AND TABOO 451 


approach them lest he become taboo.! The flesh of the Hebrew 
sin-offering, which is holy in the first degree, conveys a taboo to 
everyone who touches it, and if a drop of the blood falls on a 
garment, this must be washed, 7.e. the sanctity must be washed 
out, in a holy place, while the earthen pot in which the sacrifice 
is sodden must be broken, as in the case where dead vermin falls 
in a vessel and renders it unclean (Lev. vi. 27 sg. [Heb. ver. 20 sq. ] ; 
ef. Lev. xvi. 26, 28). At Mecca, in the times of heathenism, 
the sacred circuit of the Caaba was made by the Bedouins either 
naked, or in clothes borrowed from one of the Homs, or religious 
community of the sacred city. Wellhausen has shown that this 
usage was not peculiar to Mecca, for at the sanctuary of Al-Jalsad 
also it was customary for the sacrificer to borrow a suit from the 
priest ; and the same custom appears in the worship of the Tyrian 
Baal (2 Kings x. 22), to which it may be added that, in 2 Sam. 
vi. 14, David wears the priestly ephod at the festival of the in- 
bringing of the ark. He had put off his usual clothes, for Michal 
calls his conduct a shameless exposure of his person; see also 
1 Sam. xix. 24. The Meccan custom is explained by saying that 
they would not perform the sacred rite in garments stained with 
sin, but the real reason is quite different. It appears that some- 
times a man did make the circuit in his own clothes, but in that 
case he could neither wear them again nor sell them, but had 
to leave them at the gate of the sanctuary (Azraci, p. 125; B. 
Hisham, p. 128 sq.). They became taboo (harvm, as the verse 
cited by Ibn Hisham has it) through contact with the holy place 
and function. If any doubt remains as to the correctness of this 
explanation, it will, I trust, be dispelled by a quotation from 
Shortland’s Southern Districts of New Zealand (p. 293 sq.), 
which has been given to me by Mr. Frazer. ‘‘ A slave or other 
person not sacred would not enter a ‘ wahi tapu,’ or sacred place, 
without having first stripped off his clothes ; for the clothes, having 
become sacred the instant they entered the precincts of the ‘ wahi 
tapu,’ would ever after be useless to him in the ordinary business 
of his life.” ? 

1 The suffix shows that the verb is transitive ; not ‘‘ for I am holier than 
thou,” but ‘‘ for I would sanctify thee.” We should therefore point it as 
Piel, and compare Ezek. xliv. 19, xlvi. 12, where precautions are laid down 
to prevent the people from being consecrated by approach to holy garments 
and holy flesh. 


_ "It is perhaps on this principle that a man found encroaching on a 
hima is punished by being stripped of his clothes, etc.; Muh in Med. p. 385 


452 SACRED GARMENTS NOTE B. 


In the case of the garment stained by the blood of the sin- 
offering, we see that taboos produced by contact with holy things, 
like those due to uncleanness, can be removed by washing. In 
like manner, among the Jews the contact of a sacred volume or a 
phylactery ‘defiled the hands,” and called for an ablution, and 
the high priest on the Day of Atonement washed his flesh with 
water, not only when he put on the holy garments of the day, but 
when he put them off (Lev. xvi. 24; cf. Mishna, Yoma, viii. 4). 
In savage countries such ablutions are taken to be a literal 
physical removal of the contagious principle of the taboo, and all 
symbolical interpretations of them are nothing more than an 
attempt, in higher stages of religious development, to justify 
adhesion to traditional ritual. 

These examples may suffice to show that it is impossible to 
separate the Semitic doctrine of holiness and uncleanness from 
the system of taboo. If anyone is not convinced by them, I 
am satisfied that he will not be convinced by an accumulation 
of evidence. But as the subject is curious in itself, and may 
possibly be found to throw light on some obscure customs, I will 
conclude this part of the subject by some additional remarks, 
of a more conjectural character, on the costume worn at the 
sanctuary. 

The use of special vestments by priestly celebrants at religious 
functions is very widespread, and has relations which cannot be 
illustrated till we come to speak of sacrifice! But it is certain 
that originally every man was his own priest, and the ritual 
observed in later times by the priests is only a development of 
what was originally observed by all worshippers. As regards the 
matter of vestments, it was an early and widespread custom to 
make a difference between the dress of ordinary life and that 
donned on sacred occasions. The ancient Hebrews, on approach- 
ing the presence of the Deity, either washed their clothes (Ex. 
xix. 10) or changed them (Gen. xxxv. 2), that is, put on their best 
clothes, and the women also wore their jewels (Hos. ii. 13 [15]; 
cf. Sozomen’s account of the feast at Mamre, H. £. ii. 4). 

The washing is undoubtedly to remove possible uncleanness, 


(Wajj), Beladhori, p. 9 (Naci’). The story that ‘Amr Mozaicia tore his 
clothes every night, that no one else might wear them (Ibn Doraid, p. 258), 
is perhaps a reminiscence of an old taboo attached to royalty. 

1 See what is said of the skin of the victim as furnishing a sacred dress, 
supra, p. 437 sq. 


NOTE B. JEWELS 453 


and in Gen. xxxv. 2 the change of garments has the same 
association. But the instances given above show that, if it was 
important not to carry impurity into the sanctuary, it was equally 
necessary not to carry into ordinary life the marks of contact with 
holy places and things. As all festive occasions in antiquity were 
sacred occasions, it may be presumed that best clothes were also 
holy clothes, reserved for festal purposes. They were perfumed 
(Gen. xxvii. 15, 27), and perfume among the Semites is a very 
holy thing (Pliny, xii. 54), used in purifications (Herod. i. 198), 
and applied, according to Pheenician ritual, to all those who stood 
before the altar, clad in the long byssus robes, with a single purple 
stripe, which were appropriated to religious offices (Silius, iii. 
23 sqq.; cf. Herodian, v. 6. 10). Jewels, too, such as women 
wore in the sanctuary, had a sacred character; the Syriac word 
for an earring is c’dasha, ‘‘the holy thing,”! and generally speak- 
ing jewels serve as amulets.2 On the whole, therefore, holy dress 
and gala dress are one and the same thing, and it seems, there- 
fore, legitimate to suppose that in early times best clothes meant 
clothes that were taboo for the purposes of ordinary life. But of 
course the great mass of people in a poor society could not keep a 
special suit for sacred occasions. Such persons would either wash 
their clothes after as well as before any specially sacred function 
(Lev. vi. 27, xvi. 26, 28), or would have to borrow sacred garments. 
Shoes could not well be washed, unless they were mere linen 
stockings, as in the Phoenician sacred dress described by Herodian; 
they were therefore put off before treading on holy ground (Ex. 
iii. 5 ; Josh. v. 15, etc.).® 

Another Hebrew usage that may be noted here is the ban 
(Heb. hérem), by which impious sinners, or enemies of the com- 


1 The Arabic codds is doubtless an ancient loanword from this ; but cadis, 
an old Yemenite name for pearls (see 7G, s.v.), is probably an independent 
expression of the same idea. 

2 As amulets, jewels are mainly worn to protect the chief organs of 
action (the hands and the feet), but especially the orifices of the body 
(ear-rings ; nose-rings, hanging over the mouth; jewels on the forehead, 
hanging down and protecting the eyes). In Doughty, ii. 199, a man stuffs 
his ears with cotton before venturing to descend a well haunted by jinn. 
Similarly the lower orifices of the trunk are protected by clothing, which 
has a sacred meaning (supra, p. 437, note 2). Similar remarks apply to 
tattooing, staining with stibium and henna, etc. 

8 [A person about to consult the oracle of Trophonius, after being washed 
and anointed, put on a linen shirt and shoes of the country, trodnodpsyos 
irigcwpias xpnxioas (Pausanias, ix. 39).—J. G. Frazer.] 


454 TABOOS ON NOTE C 


munity and its god, were devoted to utter destruction. The ban 
is a form of devotion to the deity, and so the verb “to ban” is 
sometimes rendered ‘‘ consecrate” (Micah iv. 13) or “devote” 
(Lev. xxvii. 28 sg.). But in the oldest Hebrew times it involved 
the utter destruction, not only of the persons involved, but of 
their property ; and only metals, after they had passed through 
the fire, were added to the treasure of the sanctuary (Josh. vi. 
24, vii. 24; 1 Sam. xv.). Even cattle were not sacrificed, but 
simply slain, and the devoted city must not be rebuilt (Deut. 
xiii. 16; Josh. vi. 26).! Such a ban is a taboo, enforced by 
the fear of supernatural penalties (1 Kings xvi. 34), and, as 
with taboo, the danger arising from it is contagious (Deut. vii. 
26 ; Josh. vii.); he that brings a devoted thing into his house 
falls under the same ban himself. 


ADDITIONAL NOTE C (p. 158) 
YABOOS ON THE INTERCOURSE OF THE SEXES 


Acoorpine to Herodotus, ii. 64, almost all peoples, except the 
Greeks and Egyptians, picyovra: év ipotot kat amd yvvaikov 
dvirtapevot GouTot eoépxovrat és ipov. This is good evidence of 
what the Greeks and Egyptians practised ; but the assertion about 
other nations is incorrect, at least as regards the Semites and 
parts of Asia Minor,? whose religion had much in common with 
theirs. As regards the evidence, it comes to the same thing 
whether we are told that certain acts were forbidden at the 
sanctuary, or to pilgrims bound for the sanctuary, or that no one 
could enter the sanctuary without purification after committing 
them. We find that among the Arabs sexual intercourse was 
forbidden to pilgrims to Mecca. The same rule obtained among 


1 In Judg. ix. 45 the site is sown with salt, which is ordinarily explained 
with reference to the infertility of saline ground. But the strewing of salt 
has elsewhere a religious meaning (Ezek. xliii. 24), and is a symbol of 
consecration. Similarly Hesychius explains the phrase, dpas txiomcipas tos 
Kuspiov omspovrwy xpibies td ards xarapacbas TTI 

*See the inscription of Apollo Lermenus, Journ. Hell. Studies, viii. 380 
sqqg. ; this was not a Greek cult. 


NOTE ¢. WARRIORS 455 


the Minwans in connection with the sacred office of collecting 
frankincense (Pliny, H. N. xii. 54). Among the Hebrews we 
find the restriction in connection with the theophany at Sinai 
(Ex. xix. 15) and the use of consecrated bread (1 Sam. xxi. 5); 
Sozomen, ii. 4, attests it for the heathen feast at Mamre; and 
Herodotus himself tells us that among the Babylonians and Arabs 
every conjugal act was immediately followed, not only by an 
ablution, but by such a fumigation as is still practised in the 
Sudan (Herod. i. 198). This restriction is not directed against 
immorality, for it applies to spouses; nor does it spring from 
asceticism, for the temples of the Semitic deities were thronged 
with sacred prostitutes ; who, however, were careful to retire with 
their partners outside the sacred precincts (Herod. i. 199, e£w tov 
tpov; cf. Hos. iv. 14, which curiously agrees in expression with 
Ham. p. 599, second verse, where the reference is to the love- 
making of the Arabs just outside the hima). 

The extension of this kind of taboo to warriors on an expedi- 
tion is common among rude peoples, and we know that it had 
place among the Arabs, and was not wholly obsolete as late as the 
second century of Islam; see Agh. xiv. 67 (Tabari, ed. Kosegarten, 
i, 144), xv. 161; Al-Akhtal, Dow. p. 120, 1. 2; cf. Mas‘udi, vi. 
63-65, Fr. Hist. Ar. p. 247 sq. See also Notel, infra, p. 481 sqq. 
In the Old Testament, war and warriors are often spoken of as 
consecrated,—a phrase which seems to be connected, not merely 
with the use of sacred ceremonies at the opening of a campaign, 
but with the idea that war is a holy function, and the camp 
a holy place (Deut. xxiii. 10-15). That the taboo on sexual 
intercourse applied to warriors in old Israel cannot be positively 
affirmed, but is probable from Deut. xxiii. 10, 11, compared with 
1 Sam. xxi. 5, 6 [E.V. 4, 5]; 2 Sam. xi. 11. The passage in 
1 Sam., which has always been a crus interpretum, calls for some 
remark. It seems to me that the text can be translated as it 
stands, if only we take wp" as a plural, which is possible without 
adding}. David says, “ Nay, but women are forbidden to us, as 
has always been my rule when I go on an expedition, so that the 
gear (clothes, arms, etc.) of the young men is holy even when it 
is a common (not a sacred) journey ; how much more so when 
[Prov. xxi. 27] to-day they will be consecrated, gear and all.” 
David distinguishes between expeditions of a common kind, and 
campaigns which were opened by the consecration of the warriors 
and their gear, He hints that his present excursion is of the 


456 PHALLIO NOTE D. 


second kind, and that the ceremony of consecration will take 
place as soon as he joins his men; but he reminds the priest 
that his custom has been to enforce the rules of sanctity even on 
ordinary expeditions. wp’ should perhaps be pointed as Pual. 
The word Myy might more exactly be rendered “taboo,” for it 
is evidently a technical expression. So in Jer. xxxvi. 5, “I am 
ayy, I cannot go into the temple,” does not mean “I am 
imprisoned” (cf. ver. 19), but “I am restrained from entering 
the sanctuary by a ceremonial impurity.” It seems to me that 
the proverbial 21131 7\yy, one of those phrases which name two 
categories, under one or other of which everybody is included, 
means ‘he who is under taboo, and he who is free”; cf. also 7¥¥3, 
1 Sam. xxi. 7 [8], and yy, “tempus clausum.” The same sense 
‘appears in Arabic mo‘sir, applied to a girl who is shut up under 
the taboo which, in almost all early nations, affects girls at the age 
of puberty. 


ADDITIONAL NOTE D (p. 212) 


THE SUPPOSED PHALLIC SIGNIFICANCE OF SACRED POSTS AND 
PILLARS 


THat sacred posts and pillars among the Semites are phallic 
symbols is an opinion which enjoys a certain currency, mainly 
through the influence of Movers; but, as is so often the case with 
the theories of that author, the evidence in its favour is of the 
slenderest. For the pre-Hellenistic period Movers relies on 
1 Kings xv. 13, 2 Chron. xv. 16, taking nyban, after the 
Vulgate, to mean simulacrum Priapi; but this is a mere guess, 
not supported by the other ancient versions. He also appeals to 
Ezek. xvi. 17, which clearly does not refer to phallic worship, 
but to images of the Baalim ; the passage is imitated from Hos. ii. 
Many recent commentators suppose that 1, “ hand,” in Isa. lvii. 8, 
means the phallus. This is the merest conjecture, and even if it 
were certain, the use of 3° in the sense of cippus, sign-post, would 
still have to be explained, not by supposing that every monument 
or road mark was a phallic pillar, but from the obvious symbolism 
which gives us the word finger-post. The Phoenician cippi 


NOTE D. SYMBOLS 457 


dedicated to Tanith and Baal Hamman often have a hand 
figured on them, but a real hand, not a phallus. 

In ancient times obscene symbols were used without offence to 
denote sex, and female symbols of this kind are found in many 
Phoenician grottoes scratched upon the rock. Herodotus, ii. 106, 
says that he saw in Syria Palestina stele engraved with yvvatxds 
aidoia, presumably masséboth dedicated to female deities ; but how 
this can support the view that the masséba represents dvdpds 
aidotov I am at a loss to see. Indeed, the whole phallic theory 
seems to be wrecked on the fact that the masséba represents male 
and female deities indifferently. At a later date the two great 
pillars that stood in the Propylea of the temple of Hierapolis are 
ealled phalli by Lucian (Dea Syr. xvi.). Such twin pillars are 
very common at Semitic temples; even the temple at Jerusalem 
had them, and they are shown on coins representing the temple at 
Paphos ; so that Lucian’s evidence seems important, especially as 
he tells us that they bore an inscription to the effect that “these 
phalli were set up by Dionysus to his mother Hera.” But the 
inscription appears to have been in Greek, and proves only that 
the Greeks, who were accustomed to phallic symbols in Dionysus- 
worship, and habitually regarded the licentious sacred feasts of 
the Semites as Dionysiac, put their own interpretation on the 
pillars. In § xxviii. of Lucian’s work it clearly appears that the 
meaning and use of the pillars was an open question. Men were 
accustomed to ascend them, and spend a week on the top—like 
the Christian Stylites of the same region. Lucian thinks that 
this too was done because of Dionysus, but the natives said either 
that at the immense height (which is stated at 30 fathoms) they 
held near converse with the gods and prayed for the good of all 
Syria, or that the practice was a memorial of the Flood, when men 
were driven by fear to ascend trees and mountains. It is not 
easy to extract anything phallic out of these statements. 

Besides this, Movers (i. 680) cites the statement of Arnobius, 
Adv. Gentes, v. 19 (p. 212), that phalli, as signs of the grace of 
the deity, were presented to the mystw of the Cyprian Venus; 
but the use of the phallus as an amulet—which was very wide- 
spread in antiquity—can throw no light on the origin of sacred 
pillars. Everything else that he adduces is purely fantastic, and 
without a particle of evidence, and I have not found anything in 
more recent writers to strengthen his argument. 


458 SACRED TRIBUTE NOTE E. 


ADDITIONAL NOTE E (p. 245) 
SACRED TRIBUTE IN ARABIA—THE GIFT OF FIRSTLINGS 


1 nave stated in the text that the idea of sacred tribute has little 
or no place among the nomadic Arabs, and it will hardly be dis- 
puted that, broadly speaking, this statement accords with the 
facts. But it is important to determine, with as much precision 
as possible, whether the conception of tribute and gifts of homage 
paid to the deity had any place at all in the old religion of the 
purely nomadic Semites, and if it had, to define that place with 
exactness. As the full discussion of this question touches on 
matters which go beyond the subject of Lecture VII, I have 
reserved the topic for an Additional Note. 

Among the agricultural Semites the idea of a sacred tribute 
appears mainly in connection with first-fruits and tithes of agri- 
cultural produce. Animal sacrifices were ultimately brought 
under the category of gifts of homage; and so, when they were 
not presented as freewill offerings, but in accordance with ritual 
laws that demanded certain definite oblations for definite occasions, 
they also came to be looked upon as a kind of tribute. But we 
have seen that, even in the later rituals, there was a clear 
distinction between cereal oblations, which were simply pay- 
ments to the god, and animal sacrifices, which were used to 
furnish a feast for the god and his worshippers together. The 
explanation that the victim is wholly given up to the god, who 
then gives back part of it to the worshipper, that he may feast 
at the temple as the guest of his deity, is manifestly too artificial 
to be regarded as primitive ; and if, on the other hand, we look 
on a sacrifice simply as a feast provided by the worshipper, at 
which the god is the chief guest, it does not appear that, 
according to ancient ideas, any payment of tribute, or even any 
gift, is involved. Hospitality is not placed by early nations 
under the category of a gift; when a man slaughters an animal, 
everyone who is present has his share in the feast as a matter 
of course, and those who ‘eat do not feel that any present has 
been made to them. And in like manner it seems very doubtful 
whether the oblations of milk which were poured out before 
certain Arabian idols can in any proper sense be called gifts;—z.e. 
transfers of valuable property,—for in the desert it is still a shame 


NoTE £. 7 IN ARABIA 459 


to sell milk (Doughty, i. 215, ii. 443), and a draught from the 
milk-bow] is never refused to anyone. In a society where milk 
and meat are never sold, and where only a churl refuses to share 
these articles of food with every by-passer, we must not look to 
the sacrificial meal as a proof that the Arabs paid tribute to 
their gods. 

The agricultural tribute of first-fruits and tithes is a charge on 
the produce of the land, paid to the gods as Baalim or landlords. 
In this form tribute cannot appear among pure nomads. But 
tribute is also paid to kings who are not landlords, by subjects 
who are not their tenants. An example of such a tribute is the 
royal tithe in Israel, which was paid by the free landowners ; and 
on this analogy it seems quite conceivable that a sacred tribute 
paid to the god, as king or chief of his worshippers, might arise 
in a purely nomadic community. In examining this possibility, 
however, we must have regard to the actual constitution of 
Arabian society. 

Among the free tribes of the Arabian desert there is no taxa- 
tion, and the chiefs derive no revenue from their tribesmen, but, 
on the contrary, are expected to use their wealth with generosity 
for the public benefit. A modern sheikh or emir, according to 
Burckhardt’s description (Bed. and Wah. i. 118), is expected to 
treat strangers in a better style than any other member of the 
tribe, to maintain the poor, and to divide among his friends 
whatever presents he may receive. “His means of defraying 
these expenses are the tribute he exacts from the Syrian villages, 
and his emoluments from the Mecca pilgrim caravan,”—in short, 
black-mail. Black-mail is merely a regulated form of pillage, and 
the gains derived from it correspond to those which in earlier 
times came directly from the plundering of enemies and strangers. 
In ancient Arabia the chief took the fourth part of the spoils of 
war (Ham. p. 336, last verse; Wacidi, ed. Kremer, p. 10), and 
had also certain other perquisites, particularly the right to select 
for himself, before the division, some special gift, such as a 
damsel or a sword (the so-called safaya, Ham. p. 458, last verse , 
and Abu ‘Obaida, ap. Reiske, An. Musil. i. 26 sqq. of the notes)! 
Among the Hebrews, in like manner, the chief received a liberal 
share of the booty (1 Sam. xxx. 20), including some choice gift 
corresponding to the safaya (Judg. v. 30, vill. 24). In the 

1 Among the Arabs, a sacrifice (naci‘a) preceded the division of the spoil ; 
see below, Additional Note M. 


460 SACRED TRIBUTE NOTE E. 


Levitical law a fixed share of the spoil is assigned to the 
sanctuary (Num. xxxi. 28 sqq.), just as in the Moslem theocracy 
the chief’s fourth is changed to a fifth, payable to Allah and his 
prophet, but partly used for the discharge of burdens of charity 
and the like, such as in old times fell upon the chiefs (Sura 
viii. 42). These fixed sacred tributes are modern, both in Arabia 
and in Israel; but even in old times the spoils of war were a chief 
source of votive offerings. The votive offerings of the Arabs 
frequently consisted of weapons (Wellh. p. 112; cf. 1 Sam. xxi. 
9); and, among the Hebrews, part of the chief’s booty was gener- 
ally consecrated (Judg. vili. 27; 2 Sam. viii. 10 sg.; Micah iv. 13). 
Similarly, Mesha of Moab dedicates part of his spoil to Chemosh ; 
and in Greece the sacred tithe occurs mainly in the form of a 
percentage on the spoils of war. It is obvious, however, that the 
apportionment of a share of booty to the chief or to the god does 
not properly fall under the category of tribute. And on the 
general Arabian principle that a chief must not tax his cwn 
tribesmen, it does not appear that there was any room for the 
development of a system of sacred dues, so long as the gods were 
tribal deities worshipped only by their own tribe. Among the 
Arabs tribute is a payment to an alien tribe or to its chiefs, 
either by way of black-mail, or in return for protection. A king 
who receives gifts and tribute is a king reigning over subjects 
who are not of his own clan, and whom, therefore, he is not 
bound to help and protect at his own expense. I apprehend 
that the oldest Hebrew taxation rested on this principle; for 
even Solomon seems to have excluded the tribe of Judah from 
his division of the kingdom for fiscal purposes (1 Kings iv. 7 sqq.), 
while David, as a prosperous warrior, who drew vast sums from 
conquered nations, probably raised no revenue from his Israelite 
subjects. As regards Saul, we know nothing more than that he 
enriched his own tribesmen (1 Sam. xxii. 7). The system of 
taxation described in 1 Sam. viii. can hardly have been in full 
force till the time of Solomon at the earliest, and its details seem 
to indicate that, in fiscal as in other matters, the developed 
Hebrew kingship took a lesson from its neighbours of Phoenicia, 
and possibly of Egypt. 

To return, however, to the Arabs: the tributes which chiefs 
and kings received from foreigners were partly transit dues from 
traders (Pliny, H. NV. xii. 63 sqq.). In such tribute the gods had 
their share, as Pliny expressly relates for the case of the incense 


NOTE E, | IN ARABIA 461 


traffic, and as Azraci (p. 107) appears to imply for the case of 
Greek merchants at Mecca. Commerce and religion were closely 
connected in all the Semitic lands; the greatest and richest 
temples are almost always found at cities which owed their 
importance to trade. 

Of the other kind of tribute, paid by a subject tribe to a 
prince of alien kin, a lively picture is afforded by Agh. x. 12, 
where we find Zohair b. Jadhima sitting in person at the fair of 
*Okaz to collect from the Hawazin, who frequented this annual 
market, their gifts of ghee, curds and small cattle. In like 
manner the tribute of the pastoral Moabites to the kings of the 
house of ‘Omri was paid in sheep (2 Kings iii. 4); and on such 
analogies we can very well conceive that sacrificial oblations of 
food might be regarded as tribute, wherever the worshippers 
were not the tribesmen but the clients of their god. But to 
suppose that sacrifices generally were regarded by the ancient 
Semitic nomads as tributes and gifts of homage, is to suppose that 
the typical form of Semitic religion is clientship, a position which 
is altogether untenable. 

Thus it would seem that all we know of the social institutions 
of the Arabs is in complete accordance with the results, obtained 
in the text of these lectures, with regard to the original meaning 
of sacrifice. The conclusion to which the ritual points, viz. that 
the sacrifice was in no sense a payment to the god, but simply an 
act of communion of the worshippers with one another and their 
god, is in accord with the relations that actually subsisted between 
chiefs and their tribesmen ; and when we read that in the time of 
Mohammed the ordinary worship of household gods consisted in 
stroking them with the hand as one went out and in (Muh. in 
Med. p. 350), we are to remember that reverent salutation was all 
that, in ordinary circumstances, a great chieftain would expect 
from the meanest member of his tribe. At the pilgrimage feasts 
of the Arabs, as of the Hebrews, no man appeazed without a gift; 
but this was in the worship of alien gods. 

In a payment of tribute two things are involved—(1) a 
transfer of property, and (2) an obligation, not necessarily to 
pay on a fixed scale, but at least to pay something. That 
an Arabian sacrifice cannot without straining be conceived as 
a transfer of property, has appeared in the course of this note, 
and is shown from another point of view in Lecture XI. (supra, 
p. 390 sqg.). And in most sacrifices the second condition is also 


462 SACRIFICE OF NOTE £, 


unfulfilled, for in Arabia it is left to a man’s free will whether 
he will appear before the god and do sacrifice, even in the sacred 
month of Rajab. 

It seems, however, to be probable that the absolute freedom 
of the individual will in matters of religious duty, as it appears 
among the Arabs in the generations immediately preceding Islam, 
was in part due to the breaking up of the old religion. There 
can, for example, be hardly a doubt that the ascetic observances 
during a war of blood-revenge, which in the time of the prophet 
were assumed by a voluntary vow, were at one time imperatively 
demanded by religious custom (infra, Notel). Again, there were 
certain religious restrictions on the use of a man’s property which, 
even in later times, do not seem to have been purely optional, e.g. 
the prohibition of using for common work a camel which had 
produced ten female foals. But, in older times at least, such a 
camel was not given over in property to the god; the restriction 
was simply a taboo (supra, p. 149). 

There is, however, one Arabian sacrifice which has very much 
the aspect of a fixed due payable to the god, viz. the sacrifice of 
firstlings Ce sb Jara‘). It has already been remarked (supra, p. 


227, note 3) that the accounts which have been handed down 
to us about the fara’ are confused and uncertain; but although 
the word seems to have been extended to cover other customary 
sacrifices, it appears properly to denote ‘the foal or lamb which is 
first cast.” This is the definition given in the hadith, which in 
such matters has always great weight, and it is confirmed by the 
proverb in Maidani, ii. 20 (Freytag, Ar. Pr. ii. 212). As we also 
learn from the hadith (Lisan, s.v.) that the custom was to sacrifice 
the fara’ when it was still so young that the flesh was like glue 
and stuck to the skin, it would seem that this sacrifice must be 
connected with the Hebrew sacrifice of the firstborn of kine and 
sheep, which according to the oldest law (Ex. xxii. 30) was to 
be offered on the eighth day from birth. There is an unfortunate 
ambiguity about the definition of the Arabian fara, for the first 
birth may mean either the first birth of the dam, or the first birth 
of the year, and Maidani takes it in the latter sense, making fara’ 
a synonym of roba’, 1.e. a foal which, being born in the rabv, or 
season of abundant grass, when the mother was well fed, naturally 
grew up stronger and better than foals born later (cf. Gen. iv. 4). 
But apart from the analogy of the Hebrew firstlings, which 
are quite unambiguously explained as firstborn (om 705, Ex. 


NOTE £. FIRSTLINGS 463 


xxxiv. 19), there are other uses of the Arabic word fara‘ which 
make Maidani’s interpretation improbable; and the presumption 
is that, however the rule may have been relaxed or modified in 
later times, there was a very ancient Semitic custom, anterior to 
the separation of the Arabs and Hebrews, of sacrificing the first- 
born of domestic animals. The conclusion that this offering was, 
for nomadic life, what the offering of first-fruits was among 
agricultural peoples, viz. a tribute paid to the gods, seems so 
obvious that it requires some courage to resist it. Yet, from what 
has been already said, it seems absolutely impossible that, at the 
very early date when the Hebrews and Arabs lived together, any 
tribute could have been paid to the god as chief or king; and, 
even in the form of the sacrifice of firstlings which is found among 
the Hebrews, there seem to be indications that the parallelism 
with the offering of first-fruits is less complete than at first sight 
it seems to be. 

The first-fruits are an annual gift of the earliest and choicest 
fruits of the year, but the firstlings are the first offspring of an 
animal. Their proper parallel in the vegetable kingdom is there- 
fore found in the law of Lev. xix. 23 sqq., which ordains that for 
three years the fruit of a new orchard shall be treated as “ uncir- 
cumcised,” and not eaten, that the fourth year’s fruit shall be 
consecrated to Jehovah, and that thereafter the fruit shall be 
common. The characteristic feature in this ordinance, from which 
its original meaning must be deduced, is the taboo on the produce 
of the first three years, not the offering at the temple paid in the 
fourth year. And that some form of taboo lies also at the bottom 
of the sacrifice of firstlings, appears from the provision of the older 
Hebrew law that, if a firstling ass is not redeemed by its owner, 
its neck shall be broken (Ex. xxxiv. 20). We see, however, that 
the tendency was to bring all such offerings under the category of 
sacred tribute; for by the later law (Lev. xxvii. 27) the ass that 
is not redeemed is to be sold for the benefit of the sanctuary, and 
even in the older law all the firstborn of men must be redeemed. 

Primarily, a thing that is taboo is one that has supernatural 
qualities or associations, of a kind that forbid it to be used for 
common purposes. This is all that is involved, under the older 
law, in the holiness of the firstling ass; it is such an animal as 
the Arabs would have allowed to go free, instead of killing it. 
But in the very earliest times all domestic animals had a certain 
measure of holiness, and were protected by certain taboos which 


464 SACRIFICE OF NOTE E 


prevented them from being used by man as mere chattels; and 
so it would appear that the holiness of the firstborn, which is 
congenital (Lev. xxvii. 26), is only a higher form of the original 
sanctity of domestic animals. The correctness of this conclusion 
can be verified by a practical test; for if firstlings are animals of 
special intrinsic holiness, the sacrifices to which they are appropriate 
will be special acts of communion, piacular holocausts or the like, 
and not mere common sacrificial meals. And this is actually the 
case in the oldest Hebrew times; for the Passover, which is the 
sacrifice of firstlings par excellence, is an atoning rite of a quite 
exceptional kind (supra, p. 406).1 

Further, there is a close connection between the firstlings and 
the piacular holocaust; both are limited to males, and the holo- 
caust of Samuel (1 Sam. vii. 9) is a sucking lamb, while from 
Ex. xxii. 30 we see that firstlings were offered on the eighth day 
(or, probably, as soon after it as was practicable ; cf. Lev. xxii. 27). 

The consecration of first-born male children (Ex. xiii. 13, 
xxii. 28, xxxiv. 20) has always created a difficulty. The legal 
usage was to redeem the human firstlings, and in Num. iii. this 
redemption is further connected in a very complicated way with 
the consecration of the tribe of Levi. It appears, however, that 
in the period immediately before the exile, when sacrifices of 
first-born children became common, these grisly offerings were 
supposed to fall under the law of firstlings (Jer. vii. 31, xix. 5; 
Ezek. xx. 26). To conclude from this that at one time the 
Hebrews actually sacrificed all their first born sons is absurd ; 
but, on the other hand, there must have been some point of 
attachment in ancient custom for the belief that the deity asked 
for such a sacrifice. In point of fact, even in old times, when 
exceptional circumstances called for a human victim, it was a 
child, and by preference a first-born or only child, that was 
selected by the peoples in and around Palestine.2 This is 


1 That the paschal sacrifice was originally a sacrifice of firstlings is clearly 
brought out by Wellhausen, Prolegomena, chap. iii. § 1, 1. Ultimately the 
paschal lamb and the firstlings fell apart; the former was retained, with 
much of its old and characteristic ritual, as a domestic sacrifice, while tha 
latter continued to be presented at the sanctuary and offered on the altar, 
the whole flesh being the perquisite of the priest (Num. xviii. 18). But in 
the law of Deuteronomy (xii. 17 sqq., xv. 19 sqq.) the firstlings have not yet 
assumed the character of a sacred tribute, 

22 Kings iii. 27; Philo Byblius in Fr. Hist. Gr. iii. 571; cf. Porph., 
De Abst. ii. 56, ray Qiararay tive. 


: 
| 


NOTEE. FIRSTLINGS 465 


commonly explained as the most costly offering a man can make; 
but it is rather to be regarded as the choice, for a special purpose, 
of the most sacred kind of victim. I apprehend that all the 
prerogatives of the firstborn among Semitic peoples are originally 
prerogatives of sanctity ; the sacred blood of the kin flows purest 
and strongest in him (Gen. xlix. 3; Deut. xxi. 17). Neither in 
the case of children, nor in that of cattle, did the congenital 
holiness of the first-born originally imply that they must be 
sacrificed or given to the deity on the altar, but only that if 
sacrifice was to be made they were the best and fittest, because 
the holiest, victims. But when the old ideas of holiness became 
unintelligible, and holy beasts came to mean beasts set aside for 
sacrifice, an obvious extension of this new view of holiness 
demanded that the human first-born should be redeemed, by 
the substitution of an animal victim (Gen. xxii.); and from this 
usage, again, the Moloch sacrifices were easily developed in the 
seventh century, when ordinary means seemed too weak to conjure 
the divine anger. 

In the Passover we find the sacrifice of firstlings assuming the 
form of an annual feast, in the spring season. Such a combina- 
tion is possible only when the yeaning time falls in spring. So 
far as sheep are concerned, there were two lambing times in 
ancient Italy, some sheep yeaning in spring, others in autumn. 
That the same thing was true of Palestine may perhaps be in- 
ferred from the old versions of Gen. xxx. 41, 42.1. But in Arabia 
all cattle, small and great, yean in the season of the spring pasture, 
so that here we have the necessary condition for a spring sacrifice 
of firstlings,? and also a reason, more conclusive than the assertion 
of the Lisan (supra, p. 228), for identifying the Arabian Rajab 
sacrifices with the sacrifice of firstlings. 


1 Not from the text itself; cf. Bochart, Pars I. Lib. ii. cap. 46. 

2 Doughty, Arabia Deserta, i. 429 ; Blunt, Bedouin Tribes, ii. 166: ‘‘ The 
calving time for camels is in February and early March.” Of course there 
are exceptions to this rule; but the saift or summer foal is held by the 
Arabs to be a weakling (Hamasa, p. 389, 1. 25). 


30 


* 


466 SACRED: ANIMALS NOTE ¥ 


ADDITIONAL NOTE F (p. 294) 
SACRIFICES OF SACRED ANIMALS 


In the text I have spoken only of animals corresponding te 
Julian’s definition of the creatures suited for mystical piacula, 
viz. that they were such as were ordinarily excluded from 
human diet. But there are other animals which, though not 
strictly forbidden food in the times of which we have record, 
retained a certain reputation of natural holiness, which gave them 
a peculiar virtue when used in sacrifice. Of course, when the 
sacredness of an animal species ceases to be marked by the 
definite taboos that we find in the case of the swine, the dog, 
or the dove, the proof that it was once held to be holy in a 
particular religious circle becomes dependent on circumstantial 
evidence, and more or less vague. But it seems worth while to 
cite one or two examples in which the point can be fairly well 
made out, or at least made sufficiently probable to deserve further 
examination. : 

1. Deer and antelopes of various kinds were sacred animals 
in several parts of the Semitic field; see Kinship, p. 227 sq. 
They were not, indeed, forbidden food, but they had special 
relations to various deities. Troops of sacred gazelles occur down 
to a late date at sanctuaries, e.g. at Mecca and Tabala (Wellh. p. 
106), and in the island spoken of by Arrian, vii. 20. Moreover, 
stags or gazelles occur as sacred symbols in South Arabia, in 
connection with “Athtar-worship; at Mecca, probably in connec- 
tion with the worship of Al-Ozza; and in Pheenicia, both on gems 
and on coins of Laodicea ad Mare. Further, Ibn Mojawir speaks 
of a South Arab tribe which, when a gazelle was found dead, 
solemnly buried it and mourned for seven days (see p. 444). 

No kind of wild quadruped was an ordinary sacrificial animal 
among the Semites, and even the Arabs regard a gazelle as a mean 
substitute for a sheep; but in certain rituals we find the stag or 
gazelle as an exceptional sacrifice. The most notable case is the 
annual stag sacrifice at Laodicea on the Pheenician coast, which 
was regarded as a substitute for a more ancient sacrifice of a 
maiden, and was offered to a goddess whom Porphyry calls 
Athena (De Abst. ii. 56), while Pausanias (iii. 16. 8) identifies 
her with the Brauronian Artemis, and supposes that the cult was 


NOTE F, USOUS 467 


introduced by Seleucus. But the town (Ramitha in Pheenician, 
according to Philo, ap. Steph. Byz.) is much older than its re- 
christening by Seleucus, and if the goddess had really been 
Greek, she would not have been identified with Athena as well 
as with Artemis. She was, in fact, a form of Astarte, the ancient 
Tyche of the city, who, according to the usual manner of the 
later euhemeristic Syrians, was supposed to have been a virgin, 
immolated when the city was founded, and thereafter worshipped 
as a deity (Malalas, p. 203). Here, therefore, we have one of the 
many legends of the death of a deity which are grafted on a rite 
of annual human sacrifice, or on the annual sacrifice of a sacred 
animal, under circumstances that showed its life to be taken as 
having the value of a human life on the one hand, or of the 
life of the deity on the other. The stag, whose death has such 
significance, is a theanthropic victim, exactly as in the mystic 
sacrifices discussed in the text. 

Of the stag or gazelle as a Phoenician sacrifice we have further 
evidence from Philo Byblius (Euseb., Pr. Hv. i. 10. 10) in the 
legend of the god Usous, who first taught men to clothe themselves 
in the skins of beasts taken in hunting, and to pour out their blood 
sacrificially before sacred stones. This god was worshipped at 
the sanctuary he instituted, at an annual feast, and doubtless 
with the ceremonies he himself devised, 7.e. with'libations of the 
blood of a deer or antelope—for these are the important kinds of 
game in the district of the Lebanon—presented by worshippers 
clad in deer-skins. The wearing of the skin of the victim, as we 
have seen at p. 438, is characteristic of mystical and piacular rites. 
Most scholars, from Scaliger downwards, have compared Usous 
with Esau; but it has not been observed that the scene of Isaac’s 
blessing, where his son must first approach him with the savoury 
flesh of a gazelle, has all the air of a sacrificial scene. Moreover, 
Jacob, who substitutes kids for gazelles, wears their skin upon 
his arms and neck. The goat, which here appears as a substitute 
for the game offered by the huntsman Esau, was one of the chief 
Hebrew piacula, if not the chief of all. In Babylonia and Assyria 
also it has an exceptional place among sacrifices; see the repre- 
sentation in Menant, Glyptique, vol. i. p. 146 sqq., vol. i. p. 68. 
What is obsolete in common life often survives in poetic phrase 
and metaphor, and I am tempted to see in the opening words of 
David’s dirge on Saul (“The gazelle, O Israel, is slain on thy high 
places,” 2 Sam. i. 19) an allusion to some ancient sacrifice of 


468 SACRED ANIMALS NOTE F. 


similar type to that which so long survived at Laodicea. The 
sacred deer of Icarus, according to Arrian, could only be taken 
for sacrifice. 

2. The wild ass was eaten by the Arabs, and must have been 
eaten with a religious intention, since its flesh was forbidden to 
his converts by Symeon the Stylite. Conversely, among the 
Harranians the ass was forbidden food, like the swine and the 
dog; but there is no evidence that, like these animals, it was 
sacrificed or eaten in exceptional mysteries. Yet when we 
find one section of Semites forbidden to eat the ass, while 
another section eats it in a way which to Christians appears 
idolatrous, the presumption that the animal was anciently sacred 
becomes very strong. An actual ass-sacrifice appears in Egypt 
in the worship of Typhon (Set or Sutech), who was the chief 
god of the Semites in Egypt, though Egyptologists doubt whether 
he was originally a Semitic god. The ass was a Typhonic animal, 
and in certain religious ceremonies the people of Coptus sacrificed 
asses by casting them down a precipice, while those of Lycopolis, 
in two of their annual feasts, stamped the figure of a bound ass 
on their sacrificial cakes (Plut., Zs. et Os. § 30); see, for the 
meaning of these cakes, supra, pp. 225, note 3, 240, note 1; and 
for sacrifice by casting from a precipice, supra, pp. 374,418. Both 
forms indicate a mystic or piacular rite, and stand on one line 
with the holocausts of living men to Typhon mentioned by 
Manetho (ibid. § 73). If it could be made out that these rites 
were really of Semitic origin, the ass would be a clear case of 
an ancient mystic piaculum within our field; but meantime the 
matter must rest doubtful. It may, however, be noted that the 
old clan name Hamor (‘‘he-ass”) among the Canaanites in 
Shechem, seems to confirm the view that the ass was sacred 
with some of the Semites; and the fables of ass-worship among 
the Jews (on which compare Bochart, Hierozoicon, Pars I. Lib. 
ii. cap. 18) probably took their rise, like so many other false 
statements of a similar kind, in a confusion between the Jews 
and their heathen neighbours. As regards the eating of wild 
asses’ flesh by the Arabs, | have not found evidence in Arabic 
literature that in the times before Mohammed it had any religious 
meaning, though Cazwini tells us that its flesh and hoofs supplied 
powerful charms, and this is generally a relic of sacrificial use. 
On the religious associations of the ass in classical antiquity, and 
the uses of the ass’s head as a charm, see the Compte-rendu de la 


NOTE G. QUAIL SACRIFICE 469 


Comm. Imp. Archéol. (St. Petersburg) for 1863, and the Berichte 
d. stichs. Ges. d. Wiss., 1854, p. 48. 

It has been supposed that the “golden” Set, worshipped by 
the Semitic Hyksos in the Delta, was a Sun-god (KE. Meyer, Gresch. 
des Alt.i. p. 135). If this be so, the horses of the sun may have 
succeeded to the older sanctity of the ass; for the ass is much 
more ancient than the horse in the Semitic lands. 

3. To these two examples of sacred quadrupeds I am inclined 
to add one of a sacred bird. The quail sacrifice of the Phoenicians 
is said by Eudoxus (ap. Athen. ix. 47) to commemorate the 
resurrection of Heracles. But this was an annual festival at 
Tyre, in the month Peritius (February—March), z.e. just at the 
time when the quail returns to Palestine, immense crowds 
appearing in a single night (Jos., Ant. viii. 5. 3, compared with 
Tristram, Fauna, p. 124). An annual sacrifice of this sort, 
connected with a myth of the death of the god, can hardly be 
other than the mystical sacrifice of a sacred animal; and it is to 
be noted that the ancients regard quail’s flesh as dangerous food, 
producing vertigo and tetanus, while on the other hand an 
ointment made from the brain is a cure for epilepsy (Bochart, II. 
i. 15). Lagarde (Gir. Uebers. der Provv. p. 81) once proposed to 


connect the Arabic ar quail,” with the god Eshmun-Iolaos, 


who restored Heracles to life by giving him a quail to smell at; 
if this be right, the god-name must be derived from that of the 
bird, and not vice versd. 


ADDITIONAL NOTE G (p. 310) 
THE SACRIFICE OF A SHEEP TO THE CYPRIAN APHRODITE 


Insteap of a note on this subject, I here print a paper read 
before the Cambridge Philological Society in 1888, of which 
only a brief abstract has hitherto been published :— 

The peculiar rite which forms the subject of the present paper 
is known to us from a passage in Joannes Lydus, De Mensibus, 
iv. 45, which has been often referred to by writers on ancient 
religion, but, so far as my reading goes, without any notice being 


4'70 SACRIFICES OF THE NOTE G. 


taken of a most serious difficulty, which it seems impossible to 
overcome without a change of the text. Lydus in the chapter in 
question begins by describing the practices by which women of 
the higher and lower classes respectively did honour to Venus on 
the Calends of April. Here, of course, he is speaking of Roman 
usage, as 1s plain from the general plan of his book and from the 
ceremonies he specifies. The honourable women did service to 
Venus itp dpovoias kai Biov cwdpovos. This agrees with the 
worship of Venus verticordia, the patroness of female virtue, 
whose worship Ovid connects with the Calends of April (fasts, 
iv. 155 sg.), and Mommsen conjectures to have been mentioned 
under that day in the Fast? Pren. Again, Lydus says that the 
women of the common sort bathed in the men’s baths, crowned 
with myrtle, which agrees with Ovid (ibid. 139 sq.), Plutarch 
(Numa, c. 19), and the service of Fortuna virilis in the Fast. 
Pren. The transition from this Roman worship of Venus to 
the Cyprian ritual of the same day, is made by a remark as to 
the victims proper to the goddess. Venus, he says, was wor- 
shipped with the same sacrifices as Juno, but in Cyprus zpéBarov 
Kwdlw éoxeracpéevov cuvebvov 7H Adpodiry* 6 Sé Tpdmos THs tepareias 
év TH Kimpw aad ras KopivOov mapyAé wore. As Lydus goes on 
to say that thereafter (efra dé), on the second of April, they sacri- 
ficed wild boars to the goddess, on account of the attack of that 
animal on Adonis, it is clear that the sacrifice of a sheep took 
place on the first of April, and that Engel (Kypros, ii. 155) 
entirely overlooks the context when he says that, according 
to Lydus, the ordinary sacrifices of Aphrodite were the same 
as those of Hera, but that in Cyprus a favourite sacrifice to 
the former goddess was a sheep with a woolly fleece. Lydus 
does not say that a sheep was a favourite Cyprian sacrifice to 
Aphrodite, but that it was the sacrifice appropriated to the first 
of April. The very point of the passage is that the Roman 
feast of the first of April appears in Cyprus with variations 
in detail. 

This coincidence cannot be accidental, and the explanation is 
not far to seek. The Cyprian Aphrodite is the Semitic Astarte, 
and her ritual is throughout marked with a Semitic stamp. It is 
to Semitic ritual, therefore, that we must look for the origin of 
the April feast. Now, among the Syrians, Nisan is the month 
corresponding to April, and on the first three days of Nisan, as 
we learn from the /ihrist, the Syrians of Harran, who clung to 


NOTE G. CYPRIAN APHRODITE 471 


the ancient Astarte-worship far into the Middle Ages, visited the 
temple of the goddess in groups (Lydus’s ovve6vov), offered sacri- 
fices, and burned living animals. The burning of living animals 
answers to the ceremonies observed at Hierapolis in the great 
feast of the Syrian goddess at the incoming of spring, when, as 
we read in Lucian, goats, sheep and other living creatures were 
suspended on a pyre, and the whole was consumed. The feast, 
therefore, is an annual spring feast of Semitic origin. The Roman 
observance was less solemn, and of a popular kind rather than 
part of the State religion. Macrobius (Sat. i. 12. 12-15) tells us, 
indeed, that at Rome this festival was not ancient, but was intro- 
duced for an historical reason which he omits to record. Now, a 
new ritual at Rome was almost certainly a borrowed one, and 
there is ample evidence (for which it is enough to refer to 
Preller’s Romische Mythologie) that the most influential centre of 
Venus-worship in the West, and that which had most to do with 
the development of her cult in Italy, was the great temple at 
Eryx, the 778 of the Carthaginians. From Pheenician inscrip- 
tions it is certain that the goddess of Eryx (78 Mminwy, CIS. 
No. 140, cf. No. 135) was Astarte; and thus it is easily under- 
stood that the Asiatic festival found its way to Rome. A festival 
so widespread, and one which held its ground so long, is well 
worthy of careful examination. ; 

When Lydus, in passing from the Roman to the Cyprian rite, 
says ériyuadto dé 7 “Adpodirn rots avrots ois kai 4 “Hpa, I cannot 
find with Engel that he makes any general statement that, as a 
rule, the same sacrifices were appropriate to Venus and to Juno. 
Oriental worships allowed a far greater range in the choice of 
victims for a single deity or temple than was customary in Greece 
or Rome. For the Carthaginian temples of Baal this appears 
from extant inscriptions; and as regards Astarte-Aphrodite, Tacitus 
(Hist. ii. 2) tells us that at Paphos, and Allian (Nat. An. x. 50) 
that at Eryx, the worshipper chose any kind of sacrifice he pleased. 
This liberty, which was evidently surprising to the Romans and 
the Greeks, was probably due to the syncretism which established 
itself at an early date at all the great Semitic sanctuaries; one 
deity, as we see in the case of Hierapolis, combining a number of 
characters which originally belonged to different gods, and uniting 
at. a single temple a corresponding variety of ancient rituals, 
Such syncretism was probably very ancient among the cosmo- 
politan Phoenicians ; and throughout the Semitic world it received 


472 SACRIFICES OF THE NOTE & 


a great impulse by the breaking up of the old small States 
through Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian conquests. The 
political and religious cosmopolitanism of the East under the 
Macedonians rested on a basis which had been prepared centuries 
before. 

In the West no such powerful political agencies were at work 
to develop an early tendency to syncretism, nor was it so easy te 
confound the well-marked individualities of the Western Pantheon 
as to combine the hazy personalities of different Baals or Astartes. 
When the need for cosmopolitan forms of worship arose, Hastern 
gods and rituals were borrowed, as in the case of Sarapis; and 
the old acknowledged worships still retained their individual 
peculiarities. It is known that neither Juno nor Hera admitted 
such a free choice of victims for her shrine as was permitted at 
Eryx and Paphos. Their ordinary sacrifice was a cow; for, like 
other goddesses, they preferred victims of their own sex (Arnobius, 
vii. 19). But, so far as the Oriental Aphrodite had a preference, 
it was for male victims. So Tacitus tells us for Paphos, and 
Plautus also in the Penulus has “sex agnos immolavi Veneri.” 
This preference was presumably connected with the androgynous 
character ascribed to the Eastern goddess in Cyprus and else- 
where, and of itself is sufficient to separate her sacrifices, as a 
whole, from those of Juno and Hera.! Besides, the favourite 
victim of Aphrodite was the goat (Tac. Hist. iii. 2), which, except 
at Sparta (Pausanias, iii. 15. 9) and in the annual piacular sacrifice 
of Hera Acrewa at Corinth (Hesychius, 8.v. até atya; Zenobius 
on the same proverb ; Schol. on Eurip., Medea), was excluded from 
the altars of Hera. Juno has relations to the goat at Lanuvium, 
but at Rome her cultus was closely related to that of Jupiter, 
from whose offerings the goat was strictly excluded (Arnobius, 
vii. 21). 

I have perhaps spent too much time on this argument, for 
surely the context itself is sufficient to show that Lydus is not 
speaking of Venus-worship in general. What he says is that on 
the Calends of April—a special occasion—Venus was worshipped 
at Rome with the sacrifices of Juno. And as he is speaking of a 
ritual in which the worshippers were women, I think we may ge 
a step further, and recall the fact that the Calends of every month 
were sacred to Juno Lucina, to whom on that day the regina 


1 The preference for male victims seems, however, to have other connec: 
tions also; see p. 299, supra, 


ia) A 


NOTE G. CYPRIAN APHRODITE 473 


sacrorum offered in the Regia a sow or ewe-lamb (Macrob. i. 15. 19). 
The functions of Lucina, as the patroness of virtuous matrons and 
the family life of women, were so nearly identical with those of 
Venus verticordia, that their sacrifices might well be the same. 
And if this be so, it was natural for Lydus to pass on as he does 
to a remark on the Cyprian ritual, where the same sacrifices occur 
with characteristic variations. The sex of the victims is different, 
for a reason already explained, and the sacrifices are divided 
between two days. But the victims are still the sheep and the 
pig, so that the fundamental identity of the Roman and the 
Eastern service of the day receives fresh confirmation. 

So far all is plain; but now we come to the unsolved difficulty. 
It lies in the phrase rpdBarov xwdtw éoxeracpévov. These words 
describe the characteristic peculiarity, for the sake of which our 
author turns aside to mention the Cyprian rite, and it seems to 
be in relation to this feature that he observes that “the manner 
of the priestly service ” was derived from Corinth. Unfortunately 
we know nothing of the Corinthian ritual referred to. The 
Corinthian Aphrodite-worship was Oriental in type, and any 
feature in it which reappears at Cyprus is almost certainly 
Phenician. That Cyprus borrowed from Corinth is far less 
likely than that both borrowed from the East, and the authority 
of Lydus is not enough to outweigh this probability. The 
allusion te Corinth, however, is of value as teaching us that the 
peculiar rite was not merely local; and further, the allusion to 
priestly service ” shows that the sacrifice in question—as indeed 
is implied in the word ovvé@vov—was not a private offering, but a 
public rite performed at a great temple. But this does not explain 
the words xwdim écxeracpévov. It is plain that the meaning 
cannot be “a sheep with a woolly fleece,” as Engel renders, nor 
does it seem possible to understand with the Duc de Luynes 
(Num. et Insc. Cypr. p. 6), “un bélier couvert de toute sa 
toison.” If the words could bear this meaning, the rendering 
would be plausible enough, for we have seen that in the Syrian 
form of the festival the victims were given to the flames alive. 
But if Lydus had meant that the victim was consumed by fire, 
skin and all, he would have given xwdiw the article, and would 
have used a more precise word than ovvéfvov. And can kwd.ov 
be used of the sheep-skin on the sheep, or éoxeracpevov of the 
natural coat? The plain sense of the words is that the sheep was 
wrapped ina sheep-skin when it was presented for sacrifice, not 


474 SHEEP SACRIFICES TO NOTE G. 


that its skin was left upon it, or wrapped round the sacrificial 
flesh before it was laid on the altar. 

If the skin had been that of a different kind of animal, we 
might have explained the rite by the same principle of make- 
believe which we find in the Roman offering of the cervaria ovis, 
the sheep that was made to pass for a stag; for the ordinary 
meaning of skin-wearing in early religion is to simulate identifica- 
tion with the animal whose skin is worn. But to wrap a sheep 
in a sheep-skin is like gilding gold. I propose therefore to change 
a single letter, and read éoxeracpevor, a change which produces a 
sense good in itself and strongly recommended by the context and 
by analogy. - ; 

The significance of the «adcov or sheep-skin in ancient ritual has 
been illustrated by Lobeck in his Aglaophamus, and by Preller in 
his commentary on Polemo. It always appears in connection with 
atoning and mystic rites, and in the majority of Greek examples 
the practice appears to have been that the person to be purged of 
guilt set his feet, or his left foot, upon the skin of a sacrificed 
ram. But this was not the only way of using the xwdvov. In 
Thessaly there was, according to Dicearchus, a ceremony, observed 
at the greatest heat of summer, in which the worshippers ascended 
Mount Pelion to the temple of Zeus Acreeus, clad in new sheep- 
skins (fr. Hist. Gr. ii. 262). When Pythagoras was purified by 
the priests of Morgus in Crete, he was made to lie beside water 
(the sea by day, the river by night), wrapped in the fleece of a 
black lamb, and descended to the tomb of Zeus clad in black 
wool (Porph., Vita Pyth.§17). Again, the first sacrifice of every 
worshipper at Hierapolis was a sheep.: Having partaken of the 
flesh, the sacrificer laid the skin on the ground, and knelt on it, 
taking up the feet and head over his own head. In this posture 
he besought the deity to accept his offering. Here it is evident 
that the ceremony expresses the identification of the sacrificer 
with the victim. He has taken its flesh into his body, and he 


covers himself with its skin. It is, as it were, the idea of sub- 


stitution turned outside in. The direct symbolism of vicarious 
sacrifice, where an animal’s life is accepted in place of the life of 
a human being, is to treat the victim as if it werea man. At 
Tenedos, for example, the bull-calf sacrificed to Bacchus wears the 


cothurnus, and the mother cow is treated like a woman in child- 


bed. But in our case the symbolism is inverted; imstead of 


making believe that the victim is a man, the ritual makes believe 


NOTE G. THE CYPRIAN APHRODITE 475 


that the man is the victim, and so brings the atoning force of the 
sacrifice into immediate application to him. 

It is evident that if this kind of symbolism be applied, not to 
purification of an individual, but to a general and public atoning 
service, the priests, as the representatives of the community on 
whose behalf the rite is performed, are the persons to whom the 
skin of the victim must be applied. And if there are many 
priests and only one victim, it will be convenient not to use the 
actual skin of the sacrifice, which only one can wear at a time, 
but to clothe all the ministers in skins of the same kind. This, 
according to my conjecture, is what was done in Cyprus. And 
here I would ask whether the context, which alludes to the 
manner of the priestly service, does not show that some reference 
to the priests has been already made or implied. Such a reference 
the proposed emendation supplies. 

Upon this view of the passage it is necessarily involved that 
the rite described was expiatory. And that it was so seems to 
appear from several arguments. ‘The sacrifice of the following 
day consisted in wild boars, and was explained in connection 
with the Adonis myth, so that its Semitic origin is not doubtful. 
Even in Greece the pig is the great purificatory sacrifice ; but in 
Semitic religion the offering of this animal is not a mere ordinary 
piaculum, but a mystic rite of the most exceptional kind (supra, 
p. 290). Now, if the sacrifice of the second day of the feast was 
mystic, and therefore piacular in the highest degree, we may be 
sure that the first day’s sacrifice was no ordinary sacrificial meal 
of a joyous character. For a man must first be purified, and then 
sit down gladly at the table of the gods, and not conversely. 
Again, the Syrian and Roman rites, which we have found reason 
to regard as forms of the same observance, were plainly piacular 
or purificatory. In Rome we have the women bathing, which is 
a form of lustration, and wearing myrtle, which had purifying 
virtues, for it was with myrtle twigs that the Romans and 
Sabines in the time of Romulus purged themselves at the temple 
of Venus Cloacina (Preller, Rom.. Myth. 3rd ed., i. 439). And in 
the Syrian rite, where animals are burnt alive to the goddess, 
the atoning nature of the sacrifice is unmistakable, and the idea 
of a mere sacrificial feast is entirely excluded. 

A further argument for the atoning character of the rite may be 
derived from the choice of the victim, for next to the swine the 
ram was perhaps. the commonest sin-offering in antiquity (cf 


476 ATONING SACRIFICE, NOTE G. 


Hesychius, s.v. "Adpodiia aypa); so much so, that Stephani, in the 
Compte-rendu, 1869, p. 130 sqq., explains the frequent occurrence 
of rams’ heads and the like in ancient ornament as derived from 
the association of the animal with the power of averting calamity. 
Such ornaments are in fact dorpdéraa. It is always dangerous 
to apply general arguments of this kind to the interpretation of a 
particular ritual; for the same victim may be an atoning sacrifice 
in one rite and an ordinary sacrifice in another, and it by no 
means follows that because, for example, a piacular bull was 
offered to Zeus, the same piaculum would be appropriate to the 
Kastern Aphrodite. But in the case of the sheep used as a sin- 
offering, we have evidence that there was no limitation to a single 
deity ; for when Epimenides was brought to Athens to check the 
plague, he suffered black and white sheep to stray at will from the 
Areopagus, and ordered each to be sacrificed, where it lay down, 
to the nameless deity of the spot (Diog. Laert.i. 10). This form 
of atonement came from Crete, which was one of the stepping- 
stones by which Oriental influence reached Greece, so that the 
example is the more appropriate to our present argument. And 
that, in point of fact, sheep or rams were offered as piacular 
sacrifices at the altars of the Eastern Aphrodite, seems to follow 
from the Hierapolitan ritual already mentioned. The same thing 
is implied for Carthage in the Penulus of Plautus, where the 
sacrifice of six male lambs is directed to propitiate the angry 
goddess. 

These considerations will, I hope, be found sufficient to justify 
my general view of the Cyprian rite, and to support the proposed 
correction of the text. The sacrifice was piacular, and the 
xwodcov was therefore appropriate to the ritual; but on the received 
text the use of it is entirely unintelligible, whereas the correction 
éoxerracpevor restores a sense which gives to this feature the same 
character as it possesses in analogous ceremonies. But the most 
interesting aspect of the ceremony is only brought out when we 
connect it with a fact which I have hitherto kept in the back- 
ground, because its significance depends on a theory of piacular 
and mystic sacrifice which is not yet generally accepted. A 
sheep, or a sheep’s head, is a religious symbol of constant occur- 
rence on Cyprian coins ; and some of these coins show us a figure, 
which experts declare to be that of Aphrodite, clinging to the 
neck and fleece of a running ram. This device has been com- 
pared with others, which appear to be Eastern though not Cyprian, 


NOTE G. OF A SHEEP 477 


in which Aphrodite rides on a ram (see De Luynes, Num. Cypr. 
Pl. v. 3, vi. 5, and the references in Stephani, Compte-rendu for 
1869, p. 87). The inference is that in Cyprus the sheep was the 
sacred animal of Aphrodite-Astarte. In this connection it is 
important to note that the sheep is of frequent occurrence on 
Semitic votive cippi of the class dedicated to Tanith (a form of 
Astarte) and Baal-Hamman. Examples will be found in CTS. 
Pt. I. Nos. 398, 419, and in a cippus from Sulci, figured in 
Perrot and Chipiez, ili. 253. The figures on this class of cippi 
are of various kinds, and sometimes convey allusions to sacrifices 
(CIS. p. 282 sq.), but it appears to have been essential to introduce 
a figure or symbol of the deity. And when animals are figured, 
they appear to be such symbols. Thus we find fish, which are 
known to have been sacred to Astarte, and forbidden food to her 
worshippers ; a bull or cow couching, the symbol of the Sidonian 
Astarte ; the elephant, which was not a sacrifice; the horse, 
which appears so often on the coins of Carthage, and is certainly 
a divine symbol, as it is sometimes winged. On these analogies I 
conclude that among the Carthaginians, as in Cyprus, the sheep 
was sacred to and symbolic of Astarte. To speak quite exactly, 
one ought to say to a particular type of Astarte; for as this 
goddess, in the progress of syncretism so characteristic of Semitic 
religion, absorbed a great number of local types, she had a 
corresponding multiplicity of sacred animals, each of which was 
prominent at particular sanctuaries or in particular rites. Thus 
the dove-Aphrodite is specially associated with Ascalon, and the 
Cow-goddess with Sidon, where she was identified with Europa, 
the bride of the bull-Zeus (Dea Syria, iv.), and, according to 
Philo Byblius, placed the head of a bull upon her own. The 
sheep-Astarte is another type, but it also seems to have its original 
home in Canaan, for in Deut. vii. 13 the produce of the flock is 
ealled “the Ashtaroth of the sheep.” A phrase like this, which 
has descended from religion into ordinary life, and is preserved 
among the monotheistic Hebrews, is very old evidence for the 
association of Astarte with the sheep; and it is impossible to 
explain it except by frankly admitting that Astarte, in one of her 
types, had originally the form of a sheep, and was a sheep herself, 
just as in other types she was a dove or a fish. 

To this it may be objected that the ram or sheep is not the 
symbol of Tanith, but of the associated male deity Baal-Hamman, 
who in a terra-cotta of the Barre collection (Perrot et Chipiez, iii, 


478 THE SHEEP-GODDESS NOTE & 


73) is represented with ram’s horns, and laying his hand on the 
head of a sheep. But the inscription (CIS. No. 419), eited above, 
is dedicated to Tanith, not to Tanith and Baal-Hamman conjointly, 
from which it appears that the accompanying symbol was appro- 
priate to the goddess as well as to her male partner. 

It is reasonable that the same animal symbol should belong to 
the male and female members of a syzygy; and in the case of a 
goddess who was often represented as androgynous, it is not even 
necessary to suppose that her symbol would be the ewe and her 
partner’s the ram. But in fact the sheep-symbols on the. Tanith 
cippi, which are commonly called rams, are hornless, and so 
presumably stand for ewes. On the other hand, all wild sheep 
and many domestic breeds are horned in both sexes, so that there 
is no difficulty about a horned Sheep-goddess, The triangle 
surmounted by a circle, with horns bent outwards, which is 
commonly found on Tanith cippi, is probably a symbol of the 
god or the goddess indifferently. And here the horns, being 
concave outwards, can neither be bull’s horns nor the horns of 
the crescent moon, but must be the horns of sheep. 

The Cypriote coins of Aphrodite, in which she clings in a 
swimming attitude to a running ram, recall the legend of Helle 
and the golden ram, but they also are obviously parallel to the 
type of Europa and the bull. On this analogy we ought to 
remember that the male god specially associated with the ram is 
Hermes, and that the Cyprian goddess was worshipped in an 
androgynous form, to which Theophrastus gives the name of 
Hermaphroditus. I have already cited this androgynous char- 
acter to explain why the Paphian (and apparently the Punic) 
Aphrodite preferred male victims; it now supplies an additional 
reason for supposing that it was the androgynous or bearded 
Astarte that was specially connected with the ram. On one of 
the cippi already cited, in which Tanith is figured under the 
symbol of a sheep (CJS. 419), the inscription is not, as usually, 
“to the Lady Tanith,” but “to my Lord Tanith.” If this is not 
a sculptor’s error it points in the same direction. And it seems 
not unlikely that the standing title, Syn jp mon, which has given 
rise to so much discussion, means nothing more than Tanith with 
Baal’s face—the bearded goddess. 

If, now, the Cyprian goddess was a Sheep-deity, our rite 
presents us with a piacular sacrifice in which priests, disguised as 
sheep, offer to the Sheep-goddess an animal of her own kind. The 


_— i i ae 


Oe ee ee eS ee een ee ee ee ee 


NOTE 4H. THE BLOOD COVENANT 479 


ceremony, therefore, is exactly,parallel to the Roman Lupercalia, a 
_purificatory sacrifice to Faunus under the name of Lupercus. The 
image of Lupercus at the Lupercal was naked, and was clad in a 
goat-skin (Justin, xliii. 1. 7). Here, at the great lustration of 
15th February, the Luperci, who have the same name as their 
god, sacrifice goats and run about the city naked, daubed with mud 
and girt with goat-skins, applying to the women who desire to 
participate in the benefits of the rite strokes of thongs which 
were cut from the skins of the victims, and were called jfebrua. 
Both sacrifices are complete types of that most ancient form of 
sacramental and piacular mystery in which the worshippers attest 
their kinship with the animal-god, and offer in sacrifice an animal 
of the same kind, which, except on these mystical occasions, it 
would be impious to bring upon the altar. 


ADDITIONAL NOTE H (p. 315) 
FURTHER REMARKS ON THE BLOOD COVENANT 


An evidence for the survival among the Arabs of the form of 
covenant described by Herodotus, in which blood is drawn from 
the parties themselves, seems to lie in the expression mihash, 
“scarified,” for “confederates” (Nabigha, xxiv. 1, ed. Ahlw. = 
xvii. 1, ed. Derenb.). Goldziher, in an interesting review of my 
Kinship (Lntbl.f. or. Phil. 1886, p. 25 [see Kin.? 58, n.1}), thinks the 
term properly means “ the burnt ones,”’ which is the traditional 
interpretation, and suggests that we have in it an example of 
a covenant by fire, such as Jauhari (see Wellh.’ p. 124) and 
Nowairi (Rasm., Add. p. 75, 1. 11 sqq.) speak of under the head 
of nar al-hula. It does not, however, seem that in the latter case 
the fire touched the parties; what we are told is that every tribe 
had a sacred fire, and that, when two men (obviously two tribes- 
men) had a dispute, they were made to swear beside the fire, 
while the priests cast salt on it. An oath by ashes and salt is 
mentioned by Al-A‘sha in a line cited by Wellhausen from Agh. 
xx. 139, and as the ashes of the cooking pot (ramdd al-cidr) are 
a metonym for hospitality, there is perhaps nothing more in the 


480 THE BLOOD COVENANT NOTE H. 


oath by fire and salt than an appeal to the bond of common food 
that unites tribesmen. This does not indeed fully account for 
the fact that the fire is called “ the fire of terror,” and that the 
poetical references to it show the oath to have really been a terrible 
one, 7.e. dangerous to the man that perjured himself; but it is to 
be remembered that, according to Arabian belief, a man who 
broke an oath of purgation was likely to die by divine judgment 
(Bokhari, iv. 219 sq., viii. 40 sg.). I think, therefore, that in 
the present state of the evidence we must not attempt to connect 
the mihash with the nar al-hula. If the former term really means 
“burnt ones,” we must rather suppose that the reference is to the 
practice of branding with the tribal mark or wasm (which is also 
called nar, Rasm., Add. p. 76); for we learn from Agh. vii. 110, 
], 26, that the wasm was sometimes applied to men as well as to 
cattle. But (Ass primarily means “to scarify,” and as it is 
plain from the article in the Lisan that the traditional explanation 
of the word was uncertain, I take it that the best and most 
natural view is to interpret miash as “ scarified ones.” 

In process of time the Arabs came to use various substitutes 
for the blood of covenant, e.g. robb, 1.e. inspissated fruit juice 
(or perhaps the lees of clarified butter), perfumes, and even holy 
water from a sacred spring (Kinship, p. 259; Wellh.! p. 121). 
In all these cases we can still see that there was something about 
the substitute which made it an equivalent for blood. As regards 
“living water,” this is obvious from what has been said in Lecture 
V. p. 173 sqqg. on the holiness of sacred springs. Again, perfumes 
were habitually used in the form of unguents; and unguents— 
primarily sacred suet—are equivalent to blood, as has appeared in 
Lecture X. p. 383 sqgg. If robb in this connection means lees of 
butter, the use of it in covenant making is explained by the 
sacredness of unguents ; but if, as the traditions imply, it is fruit 
juice, we must remember that, in other cases also, vegetable juices 
are looked upon as a kind of blood (supra, pp. 133, 230). Com- 
pare what Lydus, De mensibus, iv. 29, says of the use of bean 
juice for blood in a Roman ceremony, with the explanation that 
the bean (xvapos) xver ata: the whole passage is notable, and 
helps to explain the existence of a bean-clan, the gens Fabia, at 
Rome; cf. also the Attic hero Kvapirys. 

The Hebrew phrase n723 n3, “to make (literally, to cut) a 
covenant,” is generally derived from the peculiar form of sacrifice 
mentioned in Gen. xv., Jer. xxxiv. 18, where the victim is cut in 


NOTE 1. TABOOS 481 


twain and the parties pass between the pieces ; and this rite again 
is explained as a symbolic form of imprecation, as if those who 
swore to one another prayed that, if they proved unfaithful, they 
might be similarly cut in pieces. But this does not explain the 
characteristic feature in the ceremony—the passing between the 
pieces; and, on the other hand, we see from Ex. xxiv. 8, “this 
is the blood of the covenant which Jehovah hath cut with you,” 
that the dividing of the sacrifice and the application of the blood 
to both parties go together. The sacrifice presumably was divided 
into two parts (as in Ex. J.c. the blood is divided into two parts), 
when both parties joined in eating it ; and when it ceased to be 
eaten, the parties stood between the pieces, as a symbol that they 
were taken within the mystical life of the victim. This interpre- 
tation is confirmed by the usage of Western nations, who practised 
the same rite with dogs and other extraordinary victims, as an 
atoning or purificatory ceremony; see the examples collected by 
Bochart, Hierozoicon, lib. ii. capp. 33, 56. There are many 
examples of a sacrifice being carried, or its blood sprinkled, round 
the place or persons to which its efficacy is to extend. 


ADDITIONAL NOTE I (p. 333) 
THE TABOOS INCIDENT TO PILGRIMAGES AND VOWS 


THE subject of the taboos, or sacred restrictions, imposed on a 
pilgrim or other votary, is important enough to deserve a detailed 
examination. These restrictions are sometimes optional, so that 
they have to be expressed when the vow is taken; at other times 
they are of the nature of fixed and customary rules, to which every 
one who takes a vow is subject. To the latter class belong, e.g. 
the restrictions imposed upon every Arab pilgrim—he must not 
cut or dress his hair, he must abstain from sexual intercourse, 
and from bloodshed and so forth ; to the former class belong the 
special engagements to which the Hebrews give the name of ésar 
or tssar (obligatio), eg. Ps. exxxii. 3 sg., “I will not enter my 
house or sleep on my bed until,” etc. ; Acts xxiii. 14, “ We will 
not eat until we have killed Paul.” It is to be observed that 


31 


482 VOWS AND NOTE I. 


restrictions of the optional class are evidently more modern than 
the other, and only come in when the fixity of ancient custom 
begins to break down; in old Arabia it was the rule that one 
who was engaged on a blood-feud must abstain from women, 
wine and unguents, but in the time of the prophet we find these 
abstinences made matter of special engagements, e.g. Wacidi, ed. 
Kremer, 182. 6 = Ibn Hisham, 543.8; Agh. vi. 99. 24,30. Where 
the engagement is optional, it naturally assumes the character of 
an incentive to prompt discharge of the vow; the votary stimulates 
his own zeal by imposing on himself abstinence from certain of the 
comforts of life till his task is discharged ; see Marzuci as quoted 
by Reiske, Abulfeda, vol. i. p. 18 of the Adnotationes, where the 
phrase ma taktarithu ’l-nafsu bihi may be compared with the Dx 
wp) myo of Num. xxx. 14. But the stated abstinences which go 
as a matter of course with certain vows cannot be explained on 
this principle, and when they are examined in detail it becomes 
manifest that they are simply taboos incident to a state of con- 
secration, the same taboos, in fact, which are imposed, without a 
vow, on everyone who is engaged in worship or priestly service 
in the sanctuary, or even everyone who is present in the holy 
place. Thus the Hebrew Nazarite was required to abstain from 
wine, and from uncleanness due to contact with the dead, and 
the same rules applied to priests, either generally or when they 
were on service (Lev. x. 9, xxi. 1 sqq.). Again, the taboo on 
sexual intercourse which lay on the Arabian pilgrim applies, 
among the Semites generally, to everyone who is engaged in 
an act of worship or present in a holy place (see above, p. 454); 
and the prohibition of bloodshed, and therefore also of hunting 
and killing game, is only an extension of the general rule that 
forbids bloodshed on holy ground. Further, when the same 
taboos that attach to a pilgrim apply also to braves on the war- 
path, and especially to men who are under a vow of blood- 
revenge (Diw. Hodh. evi. 14), it is to be remembered that with 
the Semites, and indeed with all primitive peoples, war is a sacred 
function, and the warrior a consecrated person (cf. pp. 402, 455), 
The Arabic root halla (Heb. bbn) applied to the discharge (Jit. the 
untying) of a vow, is the same which is regularly used of emer- 
gence from a state of taboo (the zhrdam, the ‘“idda of widowhood, 
etc.) into ordinary life. 

Wellhausen observes that the Arabic nadhara and the Hebrew 
11) both mean primarily “to consecrate.” In an ordinary vow a 


NOTE I. PILGRIMAGE 483 


man consecrates some material thing, in the vow of pilgrimage or 
war he consecrates himself for a particular purpose. The Arabs 
have but one root to express both forms of vow, but in Hebrew 
and Syriac the root is differentiated into two: 773, 3,4, “to vow,” 
but 773, 13, “a consecrated person.” The Syriac nézir, not- 
withstanding its medial z, is not a mere loan-word from the Old 
Testament, but is applied, for example, to maidens consecrated to 
the service of Belthis (Is. Ant. i. 212, 1. 130). 

In the case of pilgrimage, it seems that the votary consecrates 
himself by devoting his hair, which is part of himself, as an offer- 
ing at the sanctuary. Whether the consecration of the warrior 
was originally effected in the same way, and the discharge of the 
vow accomplished by means of a hair-offering, can only be matter 
of conjecture, but is at least not inconceivable. If it was so, the 
deity to whom the hair was dedicated must have been the kindred 
god of the clan, who alone, in primitive religion, could be con- 
ceived as interested in the avenging of the tribal blood; and we 
may suppose that the hair-offering of the warriors took place in 
connection with the “‘sacrifice of the home-comers,” to be spoken 
of in Note M, infra. It must, however, be observed that all over 
the world the head and hair of persons under taboo are peculiarly 
sacred and inviolable, and that the primitive notions about the 
hair as a special seat of life, which have been spoken of at p. 324, 
are quite sufficient to account for this, without reference to the 
hair-offering, which is only one out of many applications of these 
ideas. It is easy, for example, to understand why, if an important 
part of the life resides in the hair, a man whose whole life is 
consecrated—e.g. a Maori chief, or the Flamen Dialis, or in the 
Semitic field such a person as Samuel or Samson—should either 
be forbidden to cut his hair at all, or should be compelled, when 
he does so, to use special precautions against the profanation of 
the holy growth. From Ezek. xliv. 20 we may conclude that 
some Semitic priests let their hair grow unpolled, like Samuel, 
and that others kept it close shaved, like the priests of Egypt; 
both usages may be explained on a single principle, for the risk 
of profaning the hair could be met by not allowing it to grow 
at all, as well as by not allowing it to be touched. Among the 
Hebrews, princes as well as priests were consecrated persons, and 
nazir sometimes means a prince, while mnezer, ‘‘ consecration,” 
means ‘‘a diadem.” As a diadem is in its origin nothing more 
than a fillet to confine hair that is worn long, I apprehend that 


484 VOWS AND PILGRIMAGE NOTE I, 


in old times the hair of Hebrew princes, like that of a Maori 
chief, was taboo, and that Absalom’s long locks (2 Sam. xiv. 26) 
were the mark of his political pretensions, and not of his vanity. 
When the hair of a Maori chief was cut, it was collected and 
buried in a sacred place or hung on a tree; and it is noteworthy 
that Absalom’s hair was cut annually at the end of the year—+z.e. 
in the sacred season of pilgrimage, and that it was collected and 
weighed, which suggests a religious rite similar to that mentioned 
by Herod. ii. 65. 

While the general principle is clear, that the restrictions laid 
on persons under a vow were originally taboos, incident to a state 
of consecration, it is not to be supposed that we can always explain 
these taboos in detail; for, in the absence of direct evidence, it is 
often almost impossible for modern men to divine the workings 
of the primitive mind. 

Something, however, may be said about two or three rules 
which seem, at first sight, to lend colour to the notion that the 
restrictions are properly privations, designed to prevent a man 
from delaying to fulfil his vow. The Syrian pilgrim, during his 
whole journey, was forbidden to sleep on a bed. With this rule 
Wellhausen compares the custom of certain Arabs, who, during 
the ihram, did not enter their houses by the door, but broke in 
from behind,—a practice which is evidently an evasive modifica- 
tion of an older rule that forbade the house to be entered at all. 
The link required to connect the Syrian and Arabian rules is 
supplied by Ps. cxxxii. 3, and with the latter may also be 
compared the refusal of Uriah to go down to his house during a 
campaign (2 Sam. xi. 11), and perhaps also the Hebrew usage of 
living in booths at the Feast of Tabernacles, to which there are 
many parallels in ancient religion. From the point of view of 
taboo, this rule is susceptible of two interpretations: it may either 
be a precaution against uncleanness, or be meant to prevent the 
house and bed from becoming taboo, and unfit for profane use, by 
contact with the consecrated person. In favour of the second 
view may be cited the custom of Tahiti, where the kings habitually 
abstained from entering an ordinary house, lest it should become 
taboo, and be lost to its owner. However this may be, the Syrian 
practice can hardly be separated from the case of priests like the 
Selli at Dodona, who were dvirrdrodes yapatedvat, nor the rule 
against entering a house from the similar restriction imposed on 
the religious order of the Rechabites (Jer. xxxv, 9 sqg.). The 


NOTE K. THE ALTAR AT JERUSALEM 485 


Rechabites, like the Nazarites and Arabian votaries, abstained 
also from wine, and the same abstinence was practised by 
Egyptian priests (Porph., De Abst. iv. 6) and by the Pythagoreans, 
whose whole life was surrounded by a network of taboos. These 
parallels leave no doubt that the rule of abstinence is not an 
arbitrary privation, but a taboo incident to the state of consecration. 
From Judg. xiii. 4 it would seem that fermented drinks fall into 
the same class with unclean meats; compare the prohibition of 
ferments in sacrifice. Again, the Arabian rule against washing 
or anointing the head is not ascetic, but is simply a consequence 
from the inviolability of the head, which must not be touched in 
a way that might detach hairs. The later Arabs did not fully 
understand these rules, as appears from the variations of the 
statements by different authorities about one and the same vow ; 
cf., for example, the references given at the beginning of this note 
for the vowof Abu Sofyan. Finally, the peculiar dress prescribed 
to the Arabian pilgrim is no doubt a privation to the modern 
Moslem, but the dress is really nothing else than the old national 
garb of Arabia, which became sacred under the influence of 
religious conservatism, combined with the principle already ex- 
plained (supra, p. 451), that a man does not perform a sacred 
function in his everyday clothes, for fear of making them taboo. 


ADDITIONAL NOTE K (pp. 379, 384) 
THE ALTAR AT JERUSALEM 


Tuat there was always an altar of some kind before the temple 
at Jerusalem might be taken for granted, even without the express 
mention of it in 2 Kings xi. 11, xii. 9 [10], (1 Kings viii. 22, 54) ; 
but this passage throws no light on the nature of the altar. Let 
us consider separately (a) the altar of burnt-offering, (b) the brazen 
altar. 

(a) According to 1 Kings x. 25, Solomon built an altar of 
burnt-offering, and offered on it three times a year. A built altar 
is an altar of stone, such as Ahaz’s altar and the altar of the 
second temple were. There is no other trace of the existence of 


486 THE ALTAR NOTE XK. . 


such an altar before the time of Ahaz, and the verse, which is 
omitted by the Septuagint, belongs to a series of fragmentary 
notices, which form no part of the original narrative of Solomon’s 
reign, and are of various dates and of uncertain authority. Apart 
from this passage, we first read of a built altar in 2 Kings xvi., 
viz. that which Ahaz erected on the model of the altar (z.e. the 
chief altar) at Damascus. Ahaz’s innovation evidently proved 
permanent, for the altar of the second temple was also a platform 
of stone. According to the Massoretic text of 2 Kings xvi. 14, as 
it is usually translated, a brazen altar was removed to make way 
for Ahaz’s altar, but this sense is got by straining a corrupt text ; 
239p"\ cannot govern the preceding accusative, and to get sense we 
must either omit N210n nx} at the beginning of the verse or read 
Sy fornx. The former course, which has the authority of the 
LXX., seems preferable ; but in either case it follows that we must 
point 29p", and that the whole verse is an elaborate description 
of the new ritual introduced by the king. The passage in fact 
now runs thus (ver. 12): “The king went up upon the new altar 
(ver. 13) and burned his holocaust and his cereal oblation, and 
poured out his libation; and he dashed the blood of the 
peace-offerings that were for himself against the altar (ver. 14) of 
brass that was before Jehovah, and drew nigh from before the 
naos, between the naos and the (new) altar (cf. Ezek. viii. 16; 
Joel ii. 17) and applied it (z.e. some of the blood) to the northern 
flank of the altar.” The brazen altar, therefore, stood quite close 
to the naos, and the new altar stood somewhat further off, pre- 
sumably in the middle of the court, which since Solomon’s time 
had been consecrated as the place of burnt-offering. Further, 
it appears that the brazen altar was essentially an altar for the 
sprinkling of blood ; for the king dashes the blood of his shelamam 
against it before applying the blood to the new altar. But, 
according to ver. 15, he ordains that in future the blood of 
sacrifices shall be applied to the new or great altar, while the 
brazen altar is reserved for one particular kind of offering by the 
king himself (npab 4 ELV. “for me to inquire by”). The nature 
of this offering is not clear from the words used in ver. 15, but from 
ver. 14 it appears that it consisted of shelamzm offered by the 
king in person. In short, the old altar is not degraded but 
reserved for special use; henceforth none but the king himself is 
to pour sacrificial blood upon it. 

(0) It appears, then, that the brazen altar was an ancient and 


ee ere, ee ee 


ae ee eee ee ee ee ee ee Pe, 


; 
‘ 
= 


NOTE K. AT JERUSALEM 487 


sacred thing, which had existed long before Ahaz, and continued 
after his time. Yet there is no separate mention of a brazen altar 
either in the description of Solomon’s temple furniture (1 Kings 
vii.) or in the list of brazen utensils carried off by the Chaldeans. 
The explanation suggested by Wellhausen (Prolegomena, Eng. tr., 
p. 44, n. 1), that the making of the brazen altar has been omitted 
from 1 Kings vil. by some redactor, who did not see the need of a 
new brazen altar in addition to that which the priestly author of 
the Pentateuch ascribes to Moses, does not fully meet the case,and 
I can see no way out of the difficulty except to suppose that the 
brazen altar of 2 Kings xvi. is identical with one of the two 
pillars Jachin and Boaz. In the old time there was no difference 
between an altar and a sacred stone or pillar, and the brazen 
pillars are simply the ancient sacred stones—which often occur 
in pairs—translated into metal. Quite similarly in Strabo (iii. 
5. 5), the brazen pillars of Hercules at Gades, which were twelve 
feet high, are the place at which sailors do sacrifice. Of course 
an altar of this type belongs properly to the old fireless type of 
sacrifice ; but so long as the holocaust was a rare offering, it was 
not necessary to have a huge permanent hearth altar; it was 
enough to erect from time to time a pyre of wood in the middle 
of the court. It is true that 2 Kings xvi. speaks only of one 
brazen altar used for the sprinkling of the sacrificial blood, but 
it is intelligible that usage may have limited this function to one 
of the two pillars. 

I am inclined therefore to think that the innovation of Ahaz 
lay in the erection of a permanent altar hearth, and in the intro- 
duction of the rule that in ordinary cases this new altar should 
serve for the blood ritual as well as for the fire ritual. One can 
thus understand the fulness with which the ritual of the new 
altar is described, for the rule of Ahaz was that which from his 
time forward was the law of the sanctuary of Jerusalem. I feel, 
however, that there still remains a difficulty as regards the burn- 
ing of the fat of the shelamim, which was practised in Israel even 
before the royal period (1 Sam. ii. 16). In great feasts it would 
appear that the fat of ordinary offerings was burned, along with 
the holocaust, on the pavement of the court (1 Kings viii. 64), 
but what was done with it on other occasions it is not so easy to 
say. It is very noteworthy, however, that the details of the 
capitals of the brazen pillars are those of huge candlesticks or 
cressets. They had bowls (1 Kings vii. 41) like those of the 


488 CANDLESTICK SANCTUARIES NOTE K 


golden candlestick (Zech. iv. 3), and gratings like those of an 
altar hearth. They seem therefore to have been built on the 
model of those altar candlesticks which we find represented on 
Pheenician monuments ; see CJS. Pt. I. pl. 29, and Perrot and 
Chipiez, Hist. de ? Art, vol. iii. figs. 81 sgg. The similarity to a 
candlestick, which strikes us in the description of the Hebrew 
pillars, is also notable in the twin detached pillars which are 
represented on coins as standing before the temple at Paphos. 
See the annexed figure. Similar cressets, with worshippers before 
them in the act of adoration, are-figured on Assyrian engraved 
stones ; see, for example, Menant, Glyptique Orient. vol. ii. fig. 
46. In most of the Assyrian examples 
it is not easy to draw the line between 
the candelabrum and the sacred tree 
crowned with a star or crescent moon. 
The Hebrew pillar altars had also asso- 
ciations with the sacred tree, as appears 
from their adornment of pomegranates, — 
but so had the golden candlestick, in 
which the motive of the ornament was : 
taken from the almond tree (Ex. xxxvii. 17 sqq.). 
It seems difficult to believe that the enormous pillars of 
Solomon’s temple, which, if the measures are not exaggerated, 
were twenty-seven feet high, were actually used as fire altars; 
but if they were, the presumption is that the cressets were fed 
with the suet of the sacrifices. And perhaps this is after all 
a less violent supposition than that the details of a Phosnician 
altar candelabrum were reproduced in them in a meaningless 
way. At any rate there can be no doubt that one type of fire 
altar among the Pheenicians and Assyrians was a cresset rather 
than a hearth, and as this type comes much nearer to the old 
cippus than the broad platform fitted to receive a holocaust, 
I fancy that it must be regarded as the oldest type of fire altar. 
In other words, the permanent fire altar began by adding to the 
sacred stone an arrangement for consuming the fat of ordinary 
sacrifices, at a time when holocausts were still burned on a pyre. 
If the word “ Ariel,” “hearth of El,” originally meant such a 
pillar altar, we get rid of a serious exegetical difficulty in 2 Sam. 
xxiii. 20; for on this view it will appear that Benaiah’s exploit 
was to overthrow the twin fire pillars of the national sanctuary 
of Moab—an act which in these days probably needed more 


2a o 
- IN: 
42n 


neu 


NOTE L, HIGH PLACES 489 


courage than to kill two “lion-like men,” as the English Version 
has it. On the stele of Mesha (1. 12), an Ariel appears as some- 
thing that can be moved from its place, which accords with the 
view now suggested. Compare the twin pillars of the Tyrian 
Baal, one of which shone by night (Herod. ii. 44). It will be 
observed that this line of argument lends some plausibility to 
Grotius’s suggestion that the hammdnim of Isa. xvii. 8, xxvii. 9, 
etc., are wupeia. 

Finally, it may be noted that Amos ix. 1 becomes far more 
intelligible if the altar at Bethel was a pillar crowned by a sort of 
capital bearing a bowl like those at Jerusalem. For then it will 
be the altar itself that is overthrown, as the context and the 
parallelism of chap. iii. 14 seem to require: ‘‘smite the capital 
till the bowls ring again, and dash them in pieces on the heads 
of the worshippers.” 


[See G. B. Gray, Sacrifice in the Old Testament, 130 sqq. (Oxford, 1926).] 


ADDITIONAL NOTE L (p. 387) 


HIGH PLACES 

In the text of the lectures I have tried to work out the history 
of the fire altar, and show how the place of slaughter and the 
pyre ultimately met in the altar hearth. In the present note I 
will give some reasons for thinking that the gradual change of 
view, which made the burning and not the slaughter the chief 
thing in sacrifice, also left its mark in another way, by influencing 
the choice of places for worship. 

It has been observed in Lecture V. (p. 172) that the 
sanctuaries of the Northern Semites commonly lay outside and 
above the town. This does not seem to have been the case in 
Arabia, where, on the contrary, most sanctuaries seem to have 
lain in moist hollows, beside wells and trees. And even in the 
Northern Semitic lands we have found traces of sanctuaries 
beside fountains, beneath the towns, which were older than 
the high places on the hills. At Jerusalem the sanctity of 
Gihon and En-rogel is older than that of the waterless plateau 
of Zion above the town. 

Now, in the discussion of the natural marks of holy places, we 


490 HIGH PLACES NOTE L, 


saw how well-watered spots, thickets and the like, might naturally 
come to be taken as sanctuaries, and we also found it to be 
intelligible that mountain ranges should be holy tracts; but we 
have not found any natural reason for fixing a sanctuary on a 
bare and barren eminence. It is often supposed that altars were 
built on such spots because they were open to the heaven, and 
nearer than other points of earth to the heavenly gods; but this 
explanation takes a great deal for granted that we have no right 
to assume. On the other hand, if the explanation of the origin 
of burnt-offering given above is correct, it is obvious that the 
barren and unfrequented hill-top above a town would be one of 
the most natural places to choose for burning the holocaust. In 
process of time a particular point on the hill would become the 
established place of burning, and, as soon as the burnt flesh began 
to be regarded as a food-offering presented to the deity, the place 
of burning would be itself a sanctuary. Ultimately it would 
become the chief sanctuary of the town, and be fitted up with 
all the ancient apparatus of sacred posts and sacrificial pillars. 

That the high places, or hill sanctuaries, of the Semites were 
primarily places of burnt-sacrifice cannot be proved by direct 
evidence, but may, I think, be made probable, quite apart from 
the argument that has just been sketched. In Arabia we read of 
only one sanctuary that had “a place of burning,” and this is the 
hill of Cozah at Mozdalifa. Among the Hebrews the sacrifice of 
Isaac takes place on a mountain (Gen. xxii. 2), and so does the 
burnt-sacrifice of Gideon. The annual mourning on the mountains 
at Mizpah in Gilead must have been connected with a sacrifice on 
the mountains, which, like that of Laodicea, was thought to 
represent an ancient human sacrifice (Judg. xi. 40). In Isa. 
xv. 2 the Moabites in their distress go up to the high places to 
mourn, and presumably to offer atoning holocausts. It is to offer 
burnt-sacrifice that Solomon visits the high place at Gibeon 
(1 Kings iii. 4), and in general, 1p, “to burn sacrificial flesh ” 
(not as E.V., “to burn incense ”), is the usual word applied to the 
service of the high places. A distinction between a high place 
(bama) and an altar (mizbedh) is acknowledged in the Old 
Testament down to the close of the kingdom (2 Kings xxiii. 15; 
Isa, xxxvi. 7); but ultimately bdma is the name applied to any 
idolatrous shrine or altar, 


EF ee eee ey ee a ee ee oe 


a 
. 
. 
: 


NOTE M. VICTORIOUS WARRIORS 491 


ADDITIONAL NOTE M (p. 403) 
SACRIFICE BY VICTORIOUS WARRIORS 


Accorpine to Abt ‘Obaida, the Arabs, after a successful foray, 
sacrificed one beast from the spoil, and feasted upon it before the 
division of the booty (Ham. p. 458; Reiske, An. Musl. i. 26 sqq. 
of the notes; cf. Lisan, x. 240). This victim is called naci‘a, or 
more fully nacvat al-coddam, “the nacv‘a of the home-comers.” 
The verb ei is used generally of sacrificing for a guest, but its 


primary sense is to split or rend, so that the name of nacv‘a seems 
to denote some peculiar way of killing the victim. Now it appears 
from the narrative of Nilus that the victims of the Saracens 
were derived from the choicest part of the booty, from which 
they selected for sacrifice, by preference a handsome boy, or, if 
no boys had been captured, a white and immaculate camel. The 
camel exactly corresponds to the nacva of the Arabs, and the 
name probably means a victim torn to pieces in the way described 
by Nilus It seems probable, therefore, that the sacrifice made 
for warriors on their return from a foray was not an ordinary 
feast, but an antique rite of communion, in which. the victim was 
a sacred animal, or might even be an actual man. 

That the warriors on their return should unite in a solemn 
act of service is natural enough ; the thing falls under the same 
category with the custom of shaving one’s head at the sanctuary 
on returning from a journey, ahd is, in its oldest meaning, simply 
a retying of the sacred links of common life, which may have 
grown weak through absence from the tribal seat. But of course 
a sacrifice of this kind would in later times appear to be piacular 
or lustral, and accordingly, in-the Levitical law, an elaborate 
purification is prescribed for warriors returning from battle, before 
they are allowed to re-enter their homes (Num. xxxi. 19 sqq.). In 
ancient Arabia, on the other hand, where warriors were under 
the same taboos as a man engaged on pilgrimage, the nacv‘a was 
no doubt the means of untying the taboo, and so returning to 
ordinary life. 

These remarks enable us to put the sacrifice of captives, or 
of certain chosen captives, in a somewhat clearer light. This 
sacrifice is not an act of blood-revenge, for revenge is taken in 
hot blood on the field of battle. The captive is simply, as Nilus 


492 VICTORIOUS WARRIORS NOTE M. 


puts it, the choicest part of the prey, chosen for a religious 
purpose; and the custom of preferring a human victim to a 
camel is probably of secondary growth, like other customs of 
human sacrifice. It seems, however, to be very ancient, for 
Saul undoubtedly spares Agag in order that he may be sacri- 
ficed, and Samuel actually accomplishes this offering by slaying 
him “before the Lord” in Gilgal. And in this, as in other cases 
of human sacrifice, the choice of an alien instead of a tribesman 
is not of the essence of the rite, for Jephthah looses his vow on 
his return from smiting the Ammonites by the sacrifice of his 
own daughter. 

According to the Arabian lexicographers, the term nact‘a may 
be applied to sacrifices made on various occasions other than 
return from war, é.g. to a coronation feast, or that which a man 
makes for his intimates on his marriage; while ultimately the 
word appears to assume a very general sense, and to be applied to 
any slaughter to entertain a guest. For the occasions on which 
the Arabs were wont to kill a victim, which are very much the 
same as those on which slaughter of the sacred cattle is permitted 
by African peoples (supra, p. 298), note the verse cited in Lisan, 
vi. 226, x. 240 (and with a variation, Taj, v. 519, 1. 2), where 
the desirable meats include the khors, the ¢dhar, and the nacva. 
The first, which is the name applied to the broth given to women 
in child-bed, denotes also the feast made at a birth; the ¢dhar is 
the feast at a circumcision. In Journ. Phil. xiv. 124, I have 
connected the khors with the Hebrew own, “charms.” Charmed 
food is of course primarily holy food. 


NOTES TO THE THIRD EDITION 


BY 


STANLEY A. COOK, Lirt.D. 


FELLOW OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
UNIVERSITY LECTURER IN HEBREW AND ARAMAIC 


493 


NOTES TO THE THIRD EDITION 


P. 1. Toe Semirzs.'—The term, conveniently applied to the group 
of closely related peoples occupying a well-defined area (see p. 5 sq.), 
is derived from a classification in Gen. x. which is neither ethnographi- 
cal nor linguistic, but, rather, political or cultural. So, the very 
intimate connexion between Egypt and the Pheenician coast (and 
notably the city of Gebal or Byblus) goes back to the third millen- 
nium 8.c.; the history of Elam was powerfully influenced by its 
western (Semitic) neighbours, and the combination of Elam and Lud 
(p. 6)—which were naturally connected by the trade route between 
Susa and Sardes—could be justified at all events when both were 
under Assyrian domination in the seventh century B.c. (see G. R. 
Driver, p. 76). As regards the Hittites and Philistines (p. 10 sq.), 
what is now known of the Hatti in Asia Minor and of the Aigean 
civilization has opened new chapters in history. The influence of both 
upon Syria and Palestine can be clearly recognized; and “ non- 
Semitic’ though the Aigeans and Hittites were, it is not incorrect, 
on the strength of the Aramaic inscriptions found in North Syria and 
the references to the Philistines and Hittites in the Old Testament, to 
agree that on settling down they were speedily “‘ Semitized.” * 
As a matter of fact, it is simpler to determine Semitic language than 
Semitic culture, and the term is preferably used as a purely linguistic 
one. There is less readiness now to look for ‘‘ Phenician”’ influ- 
ence, for example, in Caria (p. 175 n. 2 end), or Lycia (p. 178 n. 4 
end), or Delos (pp. 200 n. 1, 202 n. 1), or to discern it in the sacrifice 
of swine at Argus and Pamphylia (p.291n.1). The various problems 
of influence, Phcenician and other, are found to be much more com- 
plex. It is necessary to recognize (a) a very ancient and close inter- 
connexion between the Semitic and other areas, and (b) a considerable 
similarity of custom throughout South-West Asia, Egypt, and along 
North Africa; and to allow for some decisive waves of influence 


1See G. A. Barton, Sketch of Semitic Origins, Social and Religious, chs. i. ii. 
(New York, 1902); Lagrange, Htudes sur les Religions Sémitiques?, ch. i. (Paris, 
1905) ; Néldeke, art. ‘“‘ Semitic Languages,” Ency. Brit.11 (1911); S. A. Cook, 
Cambridge Ancient History, i.? (1924), ch. v., and Bibliography, 1b. p. 630 sqq.; G. R. 
Driver, People and the Book, ch. iii. (ed. Peake, 1925) ; and in general, F. Hommel, 
Ethnologie und Geographie des Alten Orients (Munich, 1926). 

2See articles “ Philistines” in #.Bt. and Ency. Brit.; Camb. Anc. Hist., 
vol, ii. ch. xii., vol. iii. ch. vi. 

3 Richardson, American Journ. of stim Lang., xli. 10. 


496 SEMITES AND EGYPT 


passing more forcefully now in one direction and now in another.’ 
The “comparative ’’ method of research has brought to light most 
striking parallels among Semitic, Egyptian, Old Indian, Greek, and 
other beliefs and customs, and it is necessary to allow, as in the case 
of languages, for (1) actual borrowing, due to migration, trade, war, 
etc., (2) a common ancestry, whether more immediate and obvious 
or more remote and hypothetical, and (3) those elementary physio- 
logical and psychological processes which are admittedly the common 
possession of all mankind. 

The linguistic relationship that has been claimed between 
(a) Semitic and Sumerian, and between (b) the latter and Bantu, or 
Chinese, or Turkish, or Basque, etc., is uncertain.? On the other 
hand, that between Semitic and Egyptian is self-evident and far more 
significant.? Besides a broad ethnological connexion between Semites 
and Hamites (cf. p. 298, and Seligman, J RAJ. xliii. 593), there is close 
cultural affinity between the tribes of North Africa and Arabia, areas 
which are geologically one. And while natives of North-East Africa 
can freely cross over into South Arabia, the influence of Syrians, Arabs, 
and other “‘ Semites ”’ upon Egypt (and North-East Africa) has at one 
time or another been decisive. Indeed, just as Coptic betrays the in- 
fluence, though of course at a relatively late date, of “‘ exchanges with 
Semitic neighbours ” (Griffith, Hncy. Brit. ix. 60), so, at a very remote 
date, before the rise of the language we call “‘ Egyptian,” intercourse 
between Egypt and the Semitic area may account for the remarkable 
points of contact between the two linguistic types. A suggestive 
analogy may perhaps be furnished by Amharic, whose Semitic 
features ‘‘ give one the impression of having been superimposed on an 


alien (possibly) Hamitic basis”? (Ambruster, Initia Amharica, i. 2 sq.). ; 


This language has diverged more than any other known Semitic tongue 
from the old Semitic type. A non-Semitic mode of thought is blended 


1 Cf. S. Eitrem, Opferritus und Voropfer der Griechen und Rémer, 2; the theory 
of direct borrowing does not explain the facts. 

2 See, for (a) Ball, Proc. of the British Academy, 1915, vii., and his commentary 
on Job (Oxford, 1922), especially Burney’s Preface. For (b) cf. Drexel in the 


Semaine d’Ethnologie Religieuse, 1922 (Enghien, 1923), 171 sqq., and the literature q 


in C. Autran, Swmérien et Indo-Européen (1925). 

3 Erman (see F. LI. Griffith in Ency. Brit. ix. 59 sq.); for other discussions 
see Noéldeke, Ency. Brit. xxiv. 619d, and his Beitrage z. Semit. Sprachwissenschaft, 
i. (1905), 29; W. F. Albright, ‘‘ Notes on Egypto-Semitic Etymology,” AJSL. 


xxxiv. 81-94, 215-55 (p. 97; the resemblance is closer with Assyrian and South 


Arabian than the other Semitic languages) ; A. Ember (Oriens, ii.) ; OC. Brockel- 
mann, Grundrtss der vergleich. Grammattk d. Semit. Sprachen, i. (1908), 3 sq. ; Hester- 


mann, Sprachen u. Volker 1. Afrika, viii. (1913), 221; for the older literature see 


Stiibe, p. 6 n. 2. 


See Sel al 


SEARCH AFTER ORIGINS 497 


with Semitic linguistic usage, so that Amharic construction is more 
difficult to the student of Semitic than to one ignorant of it. Apart 
from Arabic, no Semitic tongue is spoken by so large a number of 
people ; and the rise and prominence of this partly Semitic and partly 
African language, suggest how, in a prehistoric age, long before the 
history of the Egyptian language can be traced, a Semitic wave could 
so influence the current language of North-East Africa as to account 
for the “‘ Semitic’ elements in the Egyptian language, and not the 
language alone. Such an hypothesis would at least be in accord- 
ance with known processes, whereas the theory of a single ancestor 
—an Egypto-Semitic linguistic type, and an Afrcan home of the 
Semites—goes beyond the available evidence, and relies upon too 
simple a view of the origin of parallels and analogies, linguistic 
and other. The search after ultimate origins, whether of races, 
or languages, or elements of culture or religion, lies outside the 
scope of scientific research; although theories of such origins are 
required by philosophical students. 

The title and scope of the Religion of the Semites have some- 
times been adversely criticized. The task of sketching the develop- 
ment of the main features of Semitic religion, or religions, is com- 
plicated by the evidence for the presence, within the Semitic area, 
of the most varied non-Semitic elements—Sumerian, Egyptian, Aigean, 
Hittite, and Iranian—before, to name a date, the Israelite monarchy. 
Moreover, even before this date Palestine and Syria possessed fairly 
high and well-organized systems of belief and practice, which would 
naturally influence Israelite or other tribes entering from the desert 
outside.! Consequently, the development of the religion of Israel, or 
rather of that of Palestine, which is so essential a part of the history of 
Semitic religion, now stands upon a new footing. Further, the con- 
flicting claims of Arabia and of Babylonia-Assyria (see p. 13 sg.) have 
been repeatedly discussed ; and, whereas Robertson Smith, with Well- 
hausen, Stade, and others, took the relatively simple conditions of 
Arabia for their starting-point, scholars now give more prominence to 
the abundant evidence for the antiquity and richness of the civilization 
of the old Mesopotamian lands. 

But much of what Robertson Smith wrote is not only untouched, 
but can actually be supplemented by the Babylonian material.? 


1 On the pre-Israelite (or pre-monarchical) culture of Palestine, see CAH. ii. 
ch, xill. 

2 See Lagrange, Htudes sur les Religions Sémitiques; Winckler and Zimmern, 
Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (1903); R. Campbell Thompson, Semitic 
Magic, its Origins and Development (1908); A. Jeremias, Handbuch d. altorient. 
Geisteskultur (Leipzig, 1913), and especially the works of Jastrow. 


32 


498 PERIODS OF DISINTEGRATION 


Moreover, even as regards Arabia itself, he was fully aware of the 
higher culture in early Arabia to which the Minzean and Saban in- 
scriptions testify, and he did not fail to point out that the Arabia of 
the old poets, the Arabia of the generations immediately preceding 
the rise of Islam, was one where the old religion was breaking up : 
(p. 462), an age of extreme decadence and disintegration (pp. 46, 71, 4 
282; cf. Kinship, p. 272 sq.). Similarly, there is an age of disintegra- . 
tion at and after the sweeping Assyrian conquests of the eighth and 
seventh centuries B.c.: it is of the greatest importance for an estimate 
of the vicissitudes of Semitic religion (see pp. 35, 55, 65, 258, 358, 472). 
Further, the post-exilic Levitical sacrificial system is, in spite of its 
date, “‘ primitive’ (p. 240).1 Properly speaking, nowhere can one 
find an absolutely pure society and an actually primitive stage of 
social and religious development. Theories of the development of 
religions naturally depend upon data selected from diverse social 
levels, of different ages, and at different stages of development; and 
Robertson Smith was concerned with the more permanent features, 
which ‘‘ recur with striking uniformity”? and ‘‘ govern the evolution 
of faith and worship down to a late date”’ (p. 15; see the whole para- 
graph). Such features, he says, are of the greatest interest to the 
‘* philosophical student,’ and his method of inquiry—which has 
sometimes been misunderstood—leads to the more subtle problems 
of the science and theory of religion. 

In the simpler life of Arabia, in contrast to the more complex and 
more sophisticated social systems of Babylonia and Assyria, Robertson 
Smith looks for the main elements of the religious life. Periods of 
decadence and disintegration manifest the lack of those factors that 
make for a coherent and progressive society ; new creative ages reveal 
the pregnant ideas and beliefs which usher in new series of stages. 
So, ‘in many respects the religion of heathen Arabia . . . displays 
an extremely primitive type...” (p. 14). But this no more re- 
presents the actual primitive religion than “‘ Classical Arabic,” while 
preserving forms that have been further developed or have decayed 
in the cognate languages, represents the earliest form of Semitic.? 
The analogy is instructive. In certain respects the relation between 
modern Arab dialects and Classical Arabic resembles that between the 
old Semitic languages and their presumed ancestor. But in other 
respects the ancient South Arabian inscriptions (as might be expected) 
and also Hebrew and even Aramaic, are linguistically as well as 
historically older than Arabic. In Classical Arabic we find (after 


1 Jastrow (Religious Beltef in Bab. and Ass., 289 n.) comments on the prefer- 
ence in the Old Testament “ for the lower form of culture over the higher.” 
2 See CAH. i.? 188. 


EVOLUTION OF CULTURE 499 


Néldeke) an “‘ excess of wealth,” a modification of primitive forms, 
and a certain monotony that would not be found in a truly primitive 
tongue. Further, in the history of the Semitic languages similar 
processes recur as regards the decay of gutturals, the loss of case- 
endings, and the formation of the perfect; but in none of these 
examples are the genetic processes identical. 

The facts of cultural development as a whole are obviously far 
more complex than those of language. They show that an essential 
similarity of type or process may lurk beneath the most striking 
differences, and that the points of resemblance and those of difference 
have each their own appropriate value. So, repeatedly a very similar 
attitude will recur in very different forms (e.g. the attitude to animals 
in totemism, theriomorphism, etc.). Again, a feature relatively 
primitive in some respects will recur amid conditions which in other 
respects are relatively advanced. Law and custom in the Old Testa- 
ment represent a level sociologicalky less advanced than that in the 
earlier Babyonian code of Hammurabi, even as pre-Islamic Arabia is 
in various respects below the level of the Minzan and Sabzean culture. 
Finally, where genetic processes recur, the first step is neither absol- 
utely primitive nor does it necessarily correspond in all respects to 
the first step elsewhere.t Accordingly, while Robertson Smith clearly 
admits the prominence of the “ gift’ idea in sacrifice, he is more 
concerned to determine the governing feature, namely, “‘ com- 
munion,” even as he considers the feeling of fear, however prominent 
in religion, to be less fundamental than the sentiment of kinship and 
alliance. But he no more attempts to reconstruct the actual primitive 
form of communion-sacrifice than one could venture to reconstruct, 
from the vicissitudes of the Semitic languages, the actual primitive 
and original Semitic tongue. 

The history of the diverse elements of culture and of their inter- 
action, as illustrated in the vicissitudes of an alphabet, or the textual 
history of manuscripts, or the development of a branch of learning, 
is excessively complicated. Only from the more intelligible and 
tangible examples can one hope to throw light upon those that are 
more obscure or abstruse. The Semitic languages themselves show 
how, as one goes back, the problems of origin increase in intricacy. 
The Classical Arabic, which stands at the head of a fairly long linguistic 
development, was once only one of other current Semitic dialects ; 


1To generalize: the process /!, m1, n1, will recur in the form /?, m?, n?, etc., 
and it may be possible to postulate an older L, M, N; but 2, 7?, 13, etc., although 
similar, are not identical; and the development 11, /?, 73, etc., m1, m2, m’, etc., is 
naturally not to be confused with /!, m1, n1, ete. A common type of development 
is that symbolized by 21, m?, n3. 


500 MYTH AND RITUAL 


and the Egyptian language, which has a much longer linguistic history, 
was once obviously neither Egyptian as known to us, and much less 
was it Semitic. Thus, the “‘Semites”’ as regards language and 
culture raise questions not merely of facts but of the treatment of 
facts, and Robertson Smith’s leading theories soon involve questions 
of method. In the course of research one comes to see what problems 
seem tractable and what are insoluble, although the conditions of 
their solution may sometimes be recognized. The study of religion 
has become much more difficult in the thirty years and more that 
have elapsed since Robertson Smith’s death, and it is symptomatic 
of the present situation that the rude totemism of Central Australia,* 
which has so remarkably confirmed his theory of the communion- 
sacrifice, has been regarded as ‘“‘ magic ” rather than “ religion,” and, 
in any case, tends, along with much other new and important evidence, 
to force an entire reconsideration of the nature of “ religion” and of 
its development. 

P. 17 sq. MytH anp Ritruat.—W. R. S.’s discussion of the — 
relative value of myth and ritual is classical. As a general principle, 
religious ceremonial is prior to reflexion upon it, even as “ political 
institutions are older than political theories’ (p. 20). The practical. 
religious life of a group is of greater value for the student than myth 
or dogma. The study of the “ nature of the gods” is therefore of 
relatively less significance than is often recognized (p. 81 sq.); and, 
from the highest religious point of view no less than from the point 
of view of the critical study of religions, the really effective elements 
in a religion are not necessarily those that appear on the surface or 
are most clamant. Marett observes: ‘* That ritual, or in other words 
a routine of external forms, is historically prior to dogma, was pro- 
claimed years ago by W. R. 8. and others; yet Social Anthropology 
is but to-day beginning to appreciate the psychological implications 
of this cardinal truth.” ? Similarly it has been remarked that the 
religious cult is ‘‘ the centre which offers a relatively stable material 
upon which reflexion is exercised and out of which religious doctrines 
are fashioned. They express the meaning and value which the 
community attaches to its religious activity.” ° 

When W. BR. 8. wrote he was protesting, as seems periodically to 
be necessary, against certain methods of interpreting myths. There 


1 See, in the first instance, Sir Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Native Tribes 
of Central Australia (1899), and Northern Tribes of Central Australia (1904). 

2R. R. Marett, The Birth of Humility, 13; ef. Threshold of Religion, ix. (“ reli- 
gion in its psychological aspect is, fundamentally, a mark of social behaviour ”’). 

3 See more fully, G. Galloway, The Philosophy of Religion (1914), 47 sq. 

«Cf, Andrew Lang’s notable article ‘‘ Mythology ” in the Ency. Brit. vol. xix. 


MYTHS PRIMARY AND SECONDARY 501 


was the risk of going to another extreme and of making the distinction 
between myth and ritual too absolute ; and since his day it has often 
been pointed out that myths are not necessarily derived from ritual, 
and that myth and ritual often react upon each other.1 Numerous 
myths are undeniably of quite secondary value. They are based 
upon misunderstandings (e.g. of images, words, names); they are 
explanations of explanations, the key to an old tradition having been 
lost. Or they are the elaborate product of the more intelligent and 
sophisticated individuals, and are out of touch with the thought of 
the great mass of their contemporaries. Or they have been purified 
of earlier crudities; and fancy and imagination have played upon 
them, transforming them into a pleasing tale. But whether they 
acquire an antiquarian value in some cases or an esthetic charm in 
others, the human interest of all such myths is not that which char- 
acterizes the myths of the simpler classes or communities. Thus, 
in Egypt it is instructive to contrast the homely myths of Osiris, Isis, 
and Horus, and the ideals of wifely affection and filial devotion which 
they contain, with those myths which reflect clearly enough political 
and theological tendencies to explain or simplify the interrelations 
of gods and of their domains. 

“The myth that is an essential fact for the student of religion 
is that which enshrines some living religious idea or institution, or 
which proves the survival of some ritual or faith that belonged to an 
older system.” * The ceremonial dance of certain North American 
Indians for the purpose of curing disease includes the dramatic 
rehearsal of a complicated myth which, in effect, invokes the unseen 
powers.’ Frequently the recital of the god’s great achievements is 
intended to strengthen the religion of the worshippers and encourage 
them to invoke or await his aid. Hence not only are the traditions 
of the god’s deeds preserved, but knowledge is power, and to know 
how things happen is often felt to increase one’s power (cf. Farnell, 
190 sq.). And since there are occasions when talking about things 
brings them realistically to the mind, there are myths which are felt 


1 Reference may be made, e¢.g., to D. G. Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples, 
112 sg. (New York, 1897); C. H. Toy, Introd. to the History of Religions (Boston, 
1916), ch. vii.; and, most recently, Bronislaw Malinowski, Myth in Primitive 
Psychology (1926). 

2R. Farnell, Evolution of Religion, 27. Malinowski (note above) illustrates 
myths as a direct expression of their subject-matter, statements of reality, 
products of a living faith, intimately connecting word and deed, legal charters, 
literature filling an emotional void—-myths which are not, in any sense, mere 
theories, or merely intellectual explanations, 

3 Irving King, The Development of Religion: a Study in Anthropology and Social 
Psychology, 127 sq. 


502 ANALYSIS OF MYTHS 


¢ 


to be too “‘sacred”’ to be lightly mentioned. Thus, in a variety 
of ways the oral myths of a people will virtually correspond to the 
sacred writings of the more advanced stages of religion.t In general, 
when myth (belief, doctrine, etc.) and ritual (cult, etc.) converge 
or coalesce, it is at a stage prior to that where the myth is a more 
detached story or explanation, and is less in touch with its milieu. 
By “‘ ritual”? is meant properly what is social-religious and not solely 
religious. Religious ritual can undergo a change of value. No 
doubt the correct performance of such ritual was more important 
than a man’s belief concerning its origin (p. 17); but empty ritual 
devoid of any organic meaning for the performer can hardly be of 
any psychological worth, nor can it, as such, lead to any progressive 
development. 

Broadly speaking, myths deal with the powers of the gods, their 
life-history, and their past or present functions, and they range from 
the extremes of naive anthropomorphism to the most highly specialized 
interests. They are specifically of personal interest, but, in general, 
they appeal differently to the different types of mind in normal mixed 
communities. Every myth admits of analysis. If by a myth is 
meant “‘ a story of the gods, originating in an impression produced 
on the primitive mind by the more imposing phenomena of nature ” 
(Skinner, Genesis, viii.), a distinction may be drawn between its value 
(a) for the light it throws upon ideas respecting the gods, and (b) as 
an example of the knowledge of its day. All myths reflect in varying 
forms and in varying degree the thought of their age, and for this 
reason they may be said to correspond, mutatis mutandis, to the more 
specialized types of literature of more advanced peoples. Especially 
instructive is the testimony of myths to characteristic modes of 
thought and regulative theories of the past. Among these is the 
‘“myth,” if not, rather, the “ theory,” of a primitive Golden Age 
(see above, p. 300); and of particular importance for W. R. S.’s 
inquiry is the persistent conviction of an animal surrogate for an 
original human sacrifice (p. 365). Not unnaturally have writers some- 
times spoken of certain recent sweeping theories as the modern repre- 
sentatives of the old-time “‘ myth.’’ Among such have been included 
the theory of a primitive “‘ social contract (or compact),” “‘ primitive 
promiscuity ”’ (cf. Crawley, The Mystic Rose, 483), and even W. R. S8.’s 
theory of the totem-sacrifice! Perhaps the common tendency to 
trace simple ancestries where peoples, languages, and the elements 
of civilizations are concerned is no less along the lines of early “‘ mytho- 


1Cf. Jane Harrison, Themis, 329; Durkheim, Elementary Forms of the Re- 
ligious Life, 82 sg., 101 (on the necessity of distinguishing between myths and 
fables). 


REAL VALUE OF MYTH 503 


logical” modes of thought.!_ In either case there is a tendency to go 
outside empirical data and to extend the explanation of a limited 
number of facts in order to cover larger fields. Obviously it is hazard- 
ous to look for clear-cut and more or less rationalized systems of 
belief and custom among communities who are devoid of the powers 
of reflexion, detachment, and systematization that characterize the 
modern mind; but all modern scientific or critical studies of the 
data of religion sooner or later pass from mere strings of facts to a 
treatment of them which betrays a conscious or unconscious philosophy 
of religion. The really important question is whether the philosophy 
or the methodology is the most effective one for the purpose. It 
must suffice to say that the most serious objections brought against 
W.R.S.’s methods (including his treatment of myth and ritual) appear 
to reflect theological or philosophical presuppositions and regulative 
principles opposed to his and no less in need of criticism. 

The real value of the myth is to be tested by its place in the life 
and thought of its environment. At one time myth, ritual, and even 
ideas of gods, men, and the world are parts of one organic system ; 
at another, they are no organic part of their environment, thought 
is more specialized, and there are specialized individuals. None the 
less, a purely secondary myth—just like some highly specialized 
theory—may contribute to a subsequent stage of development, while 
the rite, once an effective part of the life of a community and a guide 
for the modern interpreter, may become mechanical or fall out of 
touch with the movement of thought and thus lose the value it once 
had. Vicissitudes of this sort are always recurring in the actual 
history of religions, and, as W. R. 8.’s argument shows, it is the 
constantly recurring stage, where myth and social-religious ritual 
are one and where the latter expresses the normal thought of the 
communty, which is of fundamental importance as a starting-point 
for the apprehension of the great permanent arid pregnant steps in 
the history of religion.® 

P. 31. TentyRa.—See Hncy. Brit. s.v. “ Dendera,” and cf. Juvenal, 
Sat. xv. 35 sqq., 75 sq. : 

P. 32. Tore Uniry or Gops anD WorRSHIPPERS.—The idea of a 
social system embracing all aspects of life and thought—social, 
economic, political, and religious—and connecting gods and men, 


1 Cf. CAH. i.? 224 sq., iii. 422 (on the “ ancestor” of all alphabetical types), 
425 sq. 

2Jn a characteristic lecture, given in 1875, on “‘ Theology and the Church ” 
(Lectures and Essays, 309 sqq.), W. R. S. had already dealt with the relation between 
a living religion and a theology which is no longer in touch with the trend of 
thought; see the Introduction above. 


504 UNITY OF GODS AND WORSHIPPERS 


stamps the whole book, and in the form in which W. R. S. develops 
it, is one of the most brilliant contributions to the study of religion.+ 
Men are born into a system, an organism, a group-unit, which confers 
certain rights and entails certain obligations (p. 29). In every social 
group, with its common interests and aims, and dependent for its 
welfare on the welfare of its members, there is a moral and ethical 
unity. Early societies often have very definite notions of responsi- 
bility and retribution ;* but although ideas of social justice and 
righteousness spontaneously arose even at an early age, the generous 
ideals did not usually extend beyond the borders of the group’s 
immediate interests. Further, since the gods were “ part and parcel 
of the same natural community with their worshippers” (p. 255), 
and were also guardians of morality (p. 268), the gods vindicated 
morality (p. 425), and religion was a moral force (p. 53). But it was 
not necessarily religion of a very high standard (p. 256 sq.). Disasters 
might be an indication that the solidarity of gods and men was broken, 
but there were well-understood ways of remedying evils (p. 320). 
The gods were supposed to look after their group of worshippers as 
a matter of course, and they needed them even as they themselves 
were needed. Such group-religion engendered confidence if not a 
self-centred complacence (cf. p. 266 sg.) ; and we have in it typical 
social religious conditions which throw into strongest relief the 
Hebrew prophets’ teaching of the absolute righteousness of God 
(pp. 74, 81). ; 

Defeat and disaster easily shake or destroy the group-unit with 
its system of social, political, and religious beliefs and practices ; and 
the states of unrest and disorganization stand in striking contrast 
to the relatively coherent states which had preceded, and which 
follow when equilibrium is restored. It is this relative unity or 
solidarity which can be so often recognized and more often postulated 
that W. R. 8. is emphasizing ; and in the history of peoples or tribes 
or even individuals, states whether of unity or disunity are charac- 
terized throughout by typical related phenomena. To a certain 
extent, then, there is an elementary psychological similarity, varying 
in degree, among all groups: family or tribal, local or national, sex 
and age groups, economic and specialist groups or guilds. Hach 

1 In the lecture referred to above, W. R. S. says: “ Every society is bound 
together by a common aim and common principles. [A Christian] society must be 
bound together by its common Christianity ” (p. 326); ‘‘ Organized fellowship 
implies common interests, a common aim, some function in which the whole 
society visibly combines ” (p. 329). Both passages are significant for his later 
ideas on religion in general. 

2 Cf. Maine, Ancient Law (ed. Pollock, 1907), 1385. On the social group as a 
moral force, see especially Durkheim, 206 sqq. 


UNITY OF SENTIMENT AND IDEAS 505 


group is held together by the beliefs and usages proper to its scope 
and purpose. Each group is more than the sum of its members, 
and can be regarded as a unit, and, as frequently in the Old Testa- 
ment, as a person (e.g. Edom, Num. xx. 14 sqq.). It will feel as one. 
There are rites to enhance or renew group-unity (cf. the commensality, 
pp. 269, 274), to arouse collective enthusiasm, or to manifest collective 
grief. There is apt to be, throughout, a very similar attitude to those 
outside the group; and there are initiation rites before the outsider 
can become a member of a self-conscious group.? There is a common 
responsibility and a common participation in both ills and benefits, 
so that in tribal groups the religion is essentially that of the whole 
group, and, to take a particular case, tribute is primarily for the 
common good, for the public feasts and sacrifices (pp. 247 sqq.). 

Accordingly, group unity or disunity is essentially unity or dis- 
unity of sentiments, ideas, and interests, and the vicissitudes of groups 
and of the systems that unite them move pari passu. Even the rude 
totem-groups of Central Australia have their systems of beliefs and 
practices ; and Durkheim has shown that whether totemism is to be 
called “‘ religion’ or ‘‘ magic’ depends upon preliminary definitions, 
and that where any social group has a certain social coherence and 
effectiveness it is meaningless to expatiate upon the “errors” or 
** delusions ”? upon which its system might seem to be based.® 

The social group united by blood-ties appears as the most primi- 
tive of groups, but (a) there have been different types of kinship, and 
(b) a group-unit of blood-relatives is not necessarily a group-unit as 
regards certain social and religious duties. Further (c), the members 
of a cult-group or brotherhood, though not akin, will readily claim a 
relationship which at times is a very close one. As pointed out by 
Crawley, relation is more fundamental than relationship, and friendship 
can be a stronger tie than blood-kinship. There is, in fact, what may 
be called a psychical bond, which can be superior to physical kin- 
ship; and it is instructive to observe that the feeling of closest unity 
can lead (a) to rites of union (sexual intercourse and marriage), or 
(b) to the absolute repudiation of marriage as being, so to speak, 


1 As in Paraguay where, if a child falls ill, all the relatives refrain from the food 
which is supposed to be injurious to it (Crawley, The Mystic Rose, 423). 

2 Cf. Hutton Webster, Secret Societies, Eitrem, 465. 

3 Op. cit. bk. ii. ch. iii. On the interrelation between a social organization and 
its ideas (religious and other), see I. King, op. cit. 74, 92, et passim ; cf. also Compte’s 
remarks upon international anarchy and the absence of any general agreement 
on first principles (Fundamental Principles, i. § 70). 

4 See, e.g., Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, ch. v., n. 82: the 
fratres carissimos among the votaries of Jupiter Dolichenus. 


506 ONE COMMON LIFE 


incestuous. Kinship was not necessarily a matter of birth, it could be 
acquired (p. 273). Blood-relationship and the blood-covenant might 
seem the most elemental and powerful type of unity, and W. R.S. makes 
the social group the starting-point of religious development (cf. Kinship, 
259); but the psychical factors are clearly not less powerful than the 
physiological, and it is convenient to regard all group-units psychologi- 
cally as systems, the social group of kinsfolk being the most elemental. 
Among the more primitive societies the social group is relatively 
unspecialized and undifferentiated, although men of outstanding 
personality are by no means wanting (see p. 591). More advanced 
communities are distinguished by specialization of thought and 
function, and of belief and of custom, and individuals come to belong 
to a number of special groups each with its appropriate interests. 
How the growing complexity of the social order affects the earlier 
religious system can be easily followed. Properly, every group is, of 
course, held together by its unifying ideas, and among simple social 
groups the group and the cult are one. In totemism the animal or 
plant species—usually edible—unites the group in such a way that 
without this symbol there could be no totemic clan (Durkheim, 150). 
How essentially the group and its religion or cult are one is seen when 
the group and the god bear the same name (cf. Gad, Atar-Samain, and 
see p. 509). One life, human and divine, runs through the religious 
group (cf. Kinship, index, s.v. hayy; also John xv. 4). But whereas 
at the bottom of the scale all the members of the simple social groups 
are equal—or, rather, appear to be equal—as regards religious privi- 
leges and obligations, in course of social development there are repre- 
sentative individuals (e.g. priest-kings) and classes (e.g. priests), and 
these stand in a closer relationship than the rest of the community 
to the god or gods of the now more complex society (cf. pp. 44, 48). 
Primarily there is an interdependence of men and the gods, each 
needs the other, and there is much truth in the observation that the 
do ut des formula expresses the mechanism of the sacrificial system, 
especially when, as in totemism, the totem-class and the totem- 
species are, so to say, of the same substance (Durkheim, 341, 346 sq.). 
It is instructive, therefore, to contrast the two stages: (a) where there 
is an intimate interrelationship between the men and god(s) of the 
1 So, e.g., among allies, Crawley, Mystic Rose, 264 sq.,451; see W. R.S., Kin- 
ship, 196 n. 1 (a boy and girl who have been suckled together may not marry). 
Among primitive peoples it is sometimes felt that a youth should not marry the 
sister of his mate, because he is as his own brother. On an East European rule 
forbidding the groomsman to marry into the family of the bride, see Westermarck, 
Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, ii. 377 sq. (with other examples of 


prohibition of marriage on account of certain notions of what constitutes intimate 
relationship). 


THE METHODOLOGICAL UNIT 507 


group, and (b), where individuals—whether as prominent representa- 
tives or as humbler personages—claim the privileges without the 
responsibilities of the group-system, and where men retain one-sided 
conceptions of the relation between gods and men, forgetful of the 
more complete and self-sustaining system of beliefs and practices of 
which these conceptions are the fragmentary survivals. 

But while W. R. 8. shows how the effective system of convergent 
institutions and beliefs is of more importance than secondary myths 
and doctrines, and while the conception of a group-unit comprising 
gods and their worshippers has thrown new light upon the problems 
of religion, the unit or system is an essentially abstract or simple 
concept of immense methodological value. So far from complex 
groups being derived from some simple, pure, or homogeneous ancestor, 
it is as impossible to construct an absolutely undifferentiated group- 
system as it is to construct an undifferentiated Semitic or Egypto- 
Semitic ancestor of the Semitic or of the Semitic and Egyptian lan- 
guages (p. 499). Such is the continuous flux everywhere, even among 
rudimentary peoples, that a certain elasticity is required in estimating 
groups. Thus, in Australia, although the totem-clans are natural 
units, each with considerable autonomy, the tribe is both a larger 
unit and a complex system, rather than a commonwealth, of totem- 
clans. Moreover, different conditions prevail as regards groups of 
contiguous tribes and those more remote. Indeed, as a general rule 
it is possible to distinguish between the cults of individual clans and 
those of the tribe as a whole, between the spirits (or gods) of separate 
localities and those of the area as a whole (the ‘‘ national” gods), and 
between the latter and the spirits or gods of more remote tribes and 
areas. Thus there are always factors outside any one group-system 
which are relevant for its earlier or later vicissitudes ; and no system 
can be regarded as ultimately a closed one, although for practical 
methodological purposes it may be necessary to treat it as such. 

The group with its members, its traditions, and its outlook, is a 
unit in space and time. It transcends the present and the visible. 
It is a spiritual or psychical unit, and that which makes it effective 
lies both within the empirical group and outside it.? In all practical 


1 Cf. Hobhouse, Wheeler, and Ginsberg, Material Culture, 3 n., 8 sqq. (on the 
“unit social group ’’) ; also Marett, Anthropology, 170 (the “ group ” as a methodo- 
logical necessity). 

2 As this paradox is true even of Central Australian totemism, Durkheim’s 
definition of Religion may be quoted: ‘“‘ A religion is a unified system of beliefs and 
practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden— 
beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, 
all those who adhere to them” (p. 47). Besides Durkheim, Irving King (Develop- 
ment of Religion) has suggestively developed the theory of the social-religious group. 


508 PORTABLE SHRINES 


and effective social-religious groups there is a fusion of the “‘ sacred ”’ 
and ‘‘ divine” (the supernatural, supersensuous, etc.) and the “‘ secu- 
lar’? and “‘ human,” the god or gods are both within the group- 
system and outside it, and this paradox marks the development of 
ideas of Immanence and Transcendence (cf. p. 565). 

P. 37 and n. 5. PorTABLE SHRINES.—For the ‘otfa (also the related 
mahmal and merkab), see Schwally, Semitische Kriegsaltertiimer, i. 9 sqq. $ 
Jaussen, Coutwmes des Arabes du pays de Moab, 173 sq. (Paris, 1908) ; 
and Mrs. B. Z. Seligman, “‘ Sacred Litters among the Semites,” in 
Sudan Notes and Records, i. 268-282 (Cairo, 1918). The main features 
are: their sacred character, the sacrifice to them of a camel, their 
function in battle (as a palladium), and the part played by the sheikh’s 
daughter who, dressed as a bride, sits in the litter and inspires the men 
to battle. According to Curtiss (Bibl. World, xxiii. 97), the Ruala offer 
a preliminary sacrifice to Abu’d-Duhur for victory, and sprinkle the 
blood upon the merkab of the camel on which is seated the sheikh’s 
daughter or sister, who, perfumed and with exposed bosom, stirs the 
young warriors’ enthusiasm (cf. R. C. Thompson, Sem. Magic, 158). 
While the portable shrine naturally recalls the Ark of the Israelites, 
the boat-shaped dollah (Jaussen, 173) recalls the boats represented on 
Mesopotamian seals and the custom of transporting deities in boats 
and chariots (cf. Thureau-Dangin, Ritwels Accad. 147). In view of 
the religious duties of the modern sheikh as the guardian of the cult 
(Jaussen, 173, 296 sq., 305, 314 sqq., 326, 328, 362), and as the local 
Arab weli or saint is often regarded as originally a sheikh, it is possible 
that not only is the ‘offa a survival, but that the part played by the 
female is also a survival of a more elaborate cult. A link in the chain 
may perhaps be found in the models of images of the female T'yche, 
sometimes in pairs, and seated on camels, discussed by Cumont, 
Etudes Syriennes, 270 sqq. (1917). 

P. 42 and n. 4. Compounns or ‘abd.—Cf. the Babylonian names 
compounded with warad and a divine name (Ranke, Harly Bab. 
Personal Names, 174 sqq.). The Arabian compounds of ‘abd (on which 
see Wellh., 2-4) are well distributed over the whole peninsula. In 
several cases the second element is an ordinary personal name, and 
Wellhausen observes that it may be that of a venerated ancestor or 
primarily of a god (see also Kinship, 53 n. 1). For the name Obed- 
Edom (always written defectively, except 2 Chron. xxv. 24), cf. Phoen. 
OI 7ay, and perhaps the Safa personal name O5N.1 Esau, too, is 
possibly a divine name (cf. the Phcenician Usdos), and, besides the 
apparently feminine form in the Egyptian war-goddess Asit (W. M. 


1The Phoen. o1x2$p may be otherwise explained (Lidzbarski, Ephemeris, vi 
42). 


KINSHIP OF GODS AND MEN 509 


Miiller, Asien und Europa, 316 sq.), there are Egyptian references to a 
warrior-god ‘‘ Edom ”’ (Atum, ’tm) and to a North Palestinian place- 
name “‘Shamash-atum,” or the like.1 This evidence would suggest 
that both Edom and Esau were divine names not originally or neces- 
sarily confined to the South of Palestine ;? for analogies, cf. the wide 
distribution of the divine name Gad with its restriction as a tribal 
name to a particular part of Israel, also the Arab tribe named after 
the Queen of Heaven (Atar-Samain) mentioned along with the men 
of Kedar among the enemies of Ashurbanipal (c. 640 B.c.), For Uz 
(Us, “Aud), see Wellh., Heid.1 19, 58, 2 66, Néldeke, Hncy. of Religion 
and Ethics, i. 662; and for abstract names like Gad (Tvyn), Sa‘d (Luck), 
Manat (Fate), Wadd (? Friendship), see Wellh.? 28, Hehn, Bibl. und 
Bab. Gottesidee, 140 sq., Néldeke, op. cit. 661.2 On the identification 
of Yeush with Yaghuth, accepted by Noéldeke, ZDMG. xl. 184 and 
Wellh. Heid. 17 sqq., 219 sqqg. (on his citation from Yacut consult 
Fischer, ZDMG. lviii. 869), see now Meyer, Israeliten, 351 (Safa, 
Nabatzan, and other references). In the late Ptolemaic inscription 
from Memphis the form is Ieyovos, whereas the Septuagint form of 
Yeush is Ieovs, etc. On the South Arabian god Cain(an), with Naba- 
tan and other parallels, see Meyer, op. cit. 397 n. 

P. 45 sq. Kinsaie or Gops anp MrEn.*—On the subject in general 
see Noldeke, H.Bi. ““ Names” §§ 44-48, and his Beitrdge zur semit. 
Sprachwissenschaft, i. 90 sqq.; on the filial relation in particular, see 
N. Schmidt, H.Bi. “Son of God” §§ 3-5. For the corresponding 
Babylonian names of the type Marduk(Shamash, etc.)-abi, also 
Abum-ili and Ishtar-ummi, see Ranke, Harly Bab. Personal Names, 
189, 249; Baudissin, Adonis und Hsmun, 40 n. 1; and for the com- 
pounds of abil (son), mdr and martum (child), see the latter, 43 n. 1.5 
In Egypt the idea of the kinship, if not the essential identity of ruler 
and god—with the queen as Isis—is realistically elaborated (cf. Sir 
J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough’, ii. 131), and the god’s love for his royal 
son or for the king’s newborn heir is familiar. Such names as 'Thotmes 


1 Cf. Ed. Meyer (and B,. Luther), Die Israeliten und thre Nachbarstamme, 278 sq., 
298. 

2 See Néldeke, #.Bi. col. 1182 n. 1, on a common origin of the legends of Esau 
and Usoos. 

3 Cf. in Egypt, Shay “‘ Fate,” see A. Gardiner, HRE. s.v. Personification (Egyp- 
tian). The conception of Fate is old (see Fichtner-Jeremias, MV AG. 1922, ii.), 
that of Time or Age (on) is relatively late. 

4To p. 45 n. 1 (cf. p. 57, 1. 5) add Dhorme, La Religion Assyro-Babylonienne 
(Paris, 1910), 166 sqq., 185. 

5 Semitic names denoting the relationship of the god to the worshipper are 
classified by M. Noth, ZDMG. Ixxxi. 1-45. 

6 On the persistence of this, see Norden, Geburt des Kindes, 132 sq. 


510 NAMES DENOTING RELATIONSHIP 


(Thut-mose), usually interpreted ‘‘ child of Thoth,” can now be ex- 
plained as “T. is born” (Sethe, ZDMG. 1926, p. 50). The name 
WOWNION (n. 2, 1. 10), like nonwyox in the Eshmunazar inscription 
(CIS. i. 3, 1. 14) is taken to be an error for ‘ynpx (“‘ handmaid of 
A.”’); but Lidzbarski interprets the second name as “my mother is 
Astarte,” Baudissin (Adonis, 42, 517n.) observes that, generally 
speaking, the names compounded with Astarte do not reflect any 
ethical idea; the goddess—in contrast to the Babylonian Ishtar— 
is more of a productive nature-power, and is far less interested in 
mankind than are the male deities. 

To the South Arabian compounds of 38 (end of n. 2) add the 
female pnyoay (CIS. iv. 194). Names indicating relationship with a 
deity are rare in Arabia, with the exception of the old compounds 
of ‘am, “‘ kinsman,” or more specifically “ paternal uncle”; on the 
Babylonian compounds of ammz (? of West Semitic origin), see KAT. 
480 sqg. This rarity is remarkable, but it is possible that Arab 
nomenclature, as handed down, is the result of a secondary develop- 
ment (so Néldeke ; see Baudissin, 43 n. 2). Buchanan Gray, in turn 
(Hébrew Proper Names, 255), notes that there is a tendency for 
names indicating Yahweh as father, brother, or kinsman, to fall out 
of use; though in this case it is because “ the earlier idea of man’s 
kinship with the gods faded away even from popular thought before 
the higher prophetic conceptions of man’s unlikeness to Yahweh.” 
While the disappearance of such names may thus be explained, their 
construction—obviously under appropriate religious and psychological 
conditions—is well illustrated in the Abyssinian names cited by 
Néldeke (Beit., i. 103). Here are such names as Walda(or Sartsa)- 
Kréstdés ‘“‘son of Christ,” Walda-Amlak ‘‘ son of God,” W.-Sellasé 
‘“‘son of the Trinity,” Sartsa-Dengel “ offspring of the Virgin,” 
W.-Maryam, W.-Gabriel, etc., Walatta-Sellasé (or Amlak), Ahwa(or 
Ehta)-Kréstos ‘‘ brother (or sister) of Christ”; also other terms 
indicating close connexion, e.g. lips, neck, sweat, etc., of Christ, shoes 
of St. George, etc. etc.? 

The custom of naming the eldest son after his grandfather (to 
which W. R. S. refers) is frequent in Palestine (JPOS. v. 197). It 
does not seem to be traceable before the papyri of the Jewish or 
Palestinian colony in Elephantine of the fifth century B.c. It is 
found among the Jews of Palestine a couple of centuries later.” 


1 Specifically Phoenician are the compounds of 113 (‘“‘limb, member”) and 
the divine names Eshmun, Melkart, Astarte, and Sid; cf. Cooke, Worth Semitic 
Inscriptions, 41, 95. 

2See G. B. Gray in the Wellhausen-Festschrift, ZATW. (1914), pp. 161 sqq. ; 
ef. his Heb. Prop. Names, 3 sqq. 


6 


WIDE USE OF “ FATHER ” 511 


Néldeke’s analogies (n. 2 end) refer rather to compounds of abu 
in the sense of protector; cf. Gen. xlv. 8 (ZDMG. xlii. 480 n. 1), and 
hardly meet the case.1_ Terms of relationship are, of course, used in a 
highly metaphorical manner.?, In modern Egypt “‘ mother” and 
“‘ sister’? are terms for female friends who are of an earlier or of a 
contemporary generation, as the case may be; and elsewhere, not only 
is the term “‘ mother ”’ often used of the women of the same generation 
or class as a man’s mother, but all the terms of kinship are employed 
systematically in a classificatory manner, and the ‘‘ mother” or 
“father” is the woman whom his father might otherwise have married, 
or the man who might otherwise have taken his mother. 

When W. R. 8. emphasizes the “‘ literal”? kinship of gods and men 
in the “ congenital physical bond ”’ (pp. 30, 1. 2; 50, 1. 2; 400), it is 
to be understood that the convictions of kinship were developed to an 
extreme that would seem incredible were it not that the grossly 
anthropomorphic ideas of Allah in Mohammedan countries and the 
systematic development of the ideas in all their implications (e.g. 
the marriage of gods and men; below, p. 513) prove that, what clearly 
can only be regarded as psychical or spiritual, could be interpreted, 
expressed, or grasped only in crude physical terms by people at 
relatively early stages of mental development. 

Further, although his remarks on the kinship of gods and men 
are strictly independent of the problem of totemism (contrast Lagrange, 
Etudes, 112), it is necessary to raise the, very important question 
whether the god as “‘ father’ represents an idea earlier or more 
primitive than the god as “‘ brother.” In totemism the “‘ totem”’ 
is so much on an equality with the members of the clan that the 
profound difference between it and a god who is feared, reverenced, 
and invoked in case of need, has often been felt by scholars to be a 
fatal defect in W. R. S.’s arguments. Yet the view that, under 
certain conditions, gods are more likely to be thought of as brothers 
than as fathers cannot be set aside, although the once prevalent 
theory of widespread primitive polyandry can no longer be held 
(see further below, p. 610 sqg.). Favourable to the idea of the “* brother- 
hood ”’ of the god is, e¢.g., the belief that earth is the common mother 
of gods and men (p. 517). Sometimes a god is specifically called 


1 On abu, cf. S. A. Cook, Moses and Hammurabi, 12 n. 1. 

2 Thus, the Wapokomo of British East Africa speak of the river Tana (Tsana), 
upon which their existence depends and which is an integral part of their life and 
thought, as their brother (Miss A. Werner, Journ. of African Soc. (1913), p. 361. 

3 Crawley, Mystic Rose, 450 sq. ; see further, Mrs. Brenda Z. Seligman, “* Studies 
in Semitic Kinship,” in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies (London), iii. i. 
(1923) 51 n., 54, 67. 


512 GODS AS BROTHERS 


‘‘ brother.”’+ In Sumerian, Shamash is identified with a god whose 
name means “‘ great brother ”’ (Nielsen, op. cit. 265; see Schollmeyer, 
Sum.-bab. Hymnen, 12), and in his code Hammurabi is the brother 
(talim) of the god Zamama. In the Hymn of Victory of Thotmes Im., 
in the ‘‘ Utterance of Amon-Re, lord of Thebes,”’ it is said, “‘ I have 
caused (thy enemies) to see thy majesty as thy two brothers (t.e. 
Horus and Set) . . . thy two sisters (7.e. Isis and Nephthys), I have 
set them as a protection behind thee’ (Breasted, Ancient Records 
of Egypt, ii. 266). In certain types of monarchical religion where the 
rulers are at least quasi-divine the deities could easily be regarded 
as fathers or as brothers ; and under the influence of ideas of divine 
kingship Julia Sohemia, the mother of Elgabalus, is styled Mater 
Deum, Venus Ccelestis, etc. (see Baudissin, 48 n. 2). Such régimes 
would foster ideas of hierarchies of greater or national deities and 
of lesser deities.2 In fact, not only is the relative inferiority of certain 
deities and other supernatural beings recognized already in the 
‘* Pyramid Texts” of Egypt (c. 2800 B.c.), but the relative and at 
times absolute superiority of certain individuals over the rest, by 
reason of their religious or other pre-eminence, would place them 
in a uniquely close relationship with the great god or gods and set 
them upon a more equal footing with the lesser ones. How far 
difference of divine rank can be recognized in the Israelite concep- 
tions of Yahweh is uncertain; but a distinction has sometimes been 
drawn between Yahweh as the national god of Israel and the less 
restricted Elohim, God of Nature and of the whole world, though 
the difference has often been exaggerated. In any event, the 
apparent equality of the totem and the rest of the totem group is not 
without parallels in the higher stages, and the conception of a Supreme 
God to be feared and reverenced solely from afar is not the only one 
prevalent in the higher religions. See further on Immanence and 
Transcendence, pp. 563 sqq. 


1 Babylonian examples are cited by Dhorme, 197, and Nielsen, Dreteinige Gott, 
79 sq., 93 sq. (e.g. the name Ahu-tab). On Heb. ii. 11 (Christ’s brethren), see the 
commentary of Moffatt. 

2In the Amarna Letters the kings who are on equal terms are “ brothers.” 
When kings enter into the relation of ‘“‘ fatherhood ”’ and “ sonship,” there is a 
recognition of the supremacy of the superior and of the allegiance due to him; cf. 
the Scandinavian example cited by H. M. Chadwick, The Heroic Age, 374 (Cam- 
bridge, 1912). Frazer (GB. v. 50 sq.) suggests that religious prostitution in the rites 
of the marriage of Astarte and Adonis could lead to “sons” and ‘‘ daughters ”’ 
of the deities, who would have brother, sister, and parent deities like their fathers 
and mothers before them. ; 

3 See Kuenen, Herateuch, 58 sg.,n.19; Driver, Lit. of the Old Test. 13 n.; Orr, 
Problem of the Old Test. 225. 


SUPERNATURAL BIRTH 513 


P. 50. MarriaGE or Gops anpD Mrn.—The belief in supernatural 
parentage is widespread and ancient ; and the evidence is so abundant 
and impressive as to give rise to the theory that early man was ignorant 
of the physiological processes of conception and birth.1_ On the other 
hand, the evidence goes to show that (a) only the more exceptional 
or abnormal births are supposed to be of non-human origin, or that 
(b) only part of the babe is of human origin, the rest being due, ¢.g., 
to an ancestral spirit, or (c) that both human and non-human factors 
are involved, conception being, in some cases, not the direct result 
of intercourse, or, as among the A-kam-ba, women being supposed 
to have, in addition to their husbands, spiritual spouses to whom are 
due their offspring (Frazer, Tot. Hx. ii. 423 sq.). Finally (d) the 
explicit conviction that the god can grant child-birth or restrain it 
(Gen. xv. 3, xvi. 2, xxv. 21, etc.) is typical; cf. the numerous personal 
names denoting a child as a gift (above, p. 108 n. 2). 

On the most obvious interpretation of Gen. iv. 1, Eve “ got” 
(produced or created, 73p) a man with (the co-operation of) Yahweh ” 
(cf. Skinner, ad loc.); and in the saying of the Talmud (Kiddush. 
30 b), “‘ there are three partners in every human birth: God, father, 
and mother.” 2? The innumerable beliefs in some essential spiritual 
or supernatural factor in conception and birth range from the crudest 
ideas to the most elaborate discussions of traducianism and creationism 
(see Toy, Introd. to the Hist. of Rel., §§ 32 sqq.). The evidence as a 
whole points rather to the persisting predominance of particular 
sentiments and ideas of a spiritual character than to any persisting 
ignorance of the significance of the physical processes. In Central 
Australia the spirit of an animal or plant totem-species enters a woman 
and a child is born; in Melanesia a spirit-animal or plant enters and 
the child that is born is identified with the species. When, at the 
other end of the scale, the old Greeks speak of human beings originating 
through the operations of trees and rocks upon passing women, and 
when men spring up from the stones dropped by Deucalion and Pyrrha, 
and the men of Aigina are descended.from ants, it is evident that 
they can hardly be said to differ in kind from the beliefs of the totem 

1 See, in general, Hartland, Primitive Paternity, esp. ch. i. (Spiritual Concep- 
tion) ; Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, iv. 61 sq.; Saint-Yves, Les Vierges méres 
et les naissances miraculeuses (1908); cf. also ERE. art. ‘‘ Religion,” 678, § 23 ; 
Malinowski, Psyche, iv. 110 sqq. ' 

21. Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels, 2nd ser. (Camb., 1924), 
150, 176. On the meaning of 3p, see Burney, Journ. of Theol. Stud. xxvii. 
162 sqq. 

3 That conception and birth were mysterious phenomena is seen, e.g., in Job 


x. 10 sq.; Eccles. xi. 5; cf. H. Wheeler Robinson in The People and the Book 
(ed. Peake, 1925), 369 sq. 


33 


514 THE MARRIAGE OF GODS 


tribes of Australia.t In the modern Hast procreative powers are 
freely attributed to the jinn, to spirits of the dead, and to the welts. 
The jinn are believed to intermarry with men and women, or to 
disturb their conjugal life; and it would seem that in Babylonia 
tormented victims offered male or female images to evil spirits in 
order that they themselves might be left alone (Lagrange, 230). 
Women still visit the tombs of saints and welis, and other sacred 
shrines, in the hope of offspring, and the spirit of the saint or sacred 
ancestor is the reputed father of the child. Whatever may be due 
to whole-hearted faith, not in olden times alone has the part of the 
powerful spirit been played by some “ sacred ”’ man.? 

The idea of a conjugal relationship between a deity and a land, 
people, or ruler is familiar; and Jahweh’s marriage relationship 
with his people is realistically developed when, in Ezek. xxiii. 4, he 
is represented as having children by two wives, Oholah (Samaria), 
and Oholibah (Jerusalem). W. R. 8S. (Prophets of Israel, 170 sq., 
410 sq.), describing the marriage symbolism in Israelite religion, 
observes that the physical usage was the earlier, otherwise the alle- 
gorical use (in Hosea, etc.) could hardly be explained. It is also 
obvious on psychological grounds that what is really fundamental 
is a conviction of a relationship between people and god, so intimate 
as to find only in the marriage symbolism its most suggestive and 
fruitful expression. 

Gods are ‘‘ married” to other gods, (a) to provide them with 
consorts, on the human analogy, (6) to enhance their functions by 
the addition of particular female attributes, or (c) to unite different 
cults. Of particular significance is (d) Yahweh’s “* marriage ”’ relation 
with Israel which was believed to guarantee her prosperity. Similarly 
the marriage of the Queen-Archon with the bull-god Dionysus in 
the festival of the Anthesteria was presumably to benefit the land 
by uniting the god and—in this case—its leading representative. In 
Babylonia the marriage of Ninurta and Gula or Bau was an important 
spring festival celebrating the union of the young sun-god with the 
goddess of vegetation. With this more or less magical fertility rite 
may be compared the hieros gamos of Zeus and Hera, where, however, 


1 J. L. Myres, in Anthropology and the Classics, 128. 

2See Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion, 107, 116 sqq., 123; Frazer, GB. v. 
76 sq., 79 sqqg. In the Syriac story of the “‘ Merchant of Harran ” the barren 
woman is cured by a stone which she imagines to be from the block which Jacob 
had rolled from the well near Harran, and which could cure barrenness; and 
the merchant who has deceived her, marvels at her faith and can only wonder 
what a genuine fragment would have accomplished (Burkitt, Zuphemia and the 
Goth, 155 sqq.). 


ihe 


BRIDES OF GODS 515 


other motifs may participate, e.g., an idealization and symbol of the 
marriage of ordinary mortals.! 

Not uncommon is the marriage of girls (a) to rivers, lakes, etc. 
(even fishing-nets), to ensure the productivity and fertility of the 
latter, and (b) to images, etc., for their own benefit (Frazer, GB. ii. 
147 sq.). Virgins were frequently dedicated, betrothed, or married 
to deities (cf. the Phoenician name Syanwax ‘“ espoused of Baal’’) ; 
and in such cases the bride might be (1) set apart for the god, or 
(2) a sacrificial victim, or (3) appropriated by the men who administer 
the cult.2,7 When a vow is made on behalf of a girl she cannot be 
married until the vow is paid (Canaan, J POS. vi. 59); and, according 
to Curtiss, Prim. Sem. Rel. 167 sq., if a girl is dedicated to a saint 
it is a question whether or no she may marry. At Remtha in Hauran 
when a man is dangerously ill a daughter or sister may be vowed 
to ez-Zab’i, and when she is of marriageable age, she is dressed as a 
bride, taken to his shrine, and the first of the saint’s descendants 
who sees her can take her as his wife, or dispose of her in marriage 
to any suitor who will pay him a dowry (Curtiss, Expositor, Dec. 
1904, p. 464). Other gods than Bel of Babylon were provided with 
couches (see Frazer on Pausanias ii. 17, 3).3 The consecration of the 
couch of Nebo at Calah on the occasion of his annual marriage is 
minutely described. In Babylon the entu or bride of the god was 
of the highest caste, the wife of the patron god of the city (CAH. 1?, 
536); the great Sargon, who “ knew not his father,” and had for 
mother an enitu, was apparently the offspring of a “‘ sacred”’ marriage.§ 
Generally speaking, when a girl is dedicated it is not always clear 
whether it is to temple-harlotry or to absolute chastity.® 

When Antiochus Epiphanes proposed to marry the goddess 


1 Farnell, Cults, i. 184, 192; Greece and Babylon, 263 sq. On the marriage 
of Adonis and Aphrodite celebrated at Alexandria in 273 B.c., see Frazer, GB. v. 
224; Gressmann, Expositor, iii. (1921), 426 sqqg. The Egyptian dynastic marriage 
was both divine and human, the queen being the “‘ god’s wife” (Moret, Du 
Caractére Relig. de la Royauté Pharaonique). » 

2 See for (2) Farnell, Greece and Bab. 266; cf. the ‘‘ Bride of the Nile,” Frazer, 
GB. vi. 38 sqg.; and for (3) GB. ii. 150 sg. and v. 67 sq. (in Kikuyu the offspring 
are regarded as the deity’s children). 

3 Apollo was nightly closeted with his prophetess during the months when 
he gave oracles at Patara (GB. ii. 135). 

4 Journ. of Amer. Or. Soc. xviii. 1897 ; i. 153; see GB. ii. 180. 

5 See further p. 613. The story of Paulina and the god Anubis (Josephus, 
Antig. xviii. 3) at least shows what was considered credible ; cf. also the stories 
of Nectanebus and Olympias, and see O. Weinreich’s monograph (Der Trug des 
Nektanebos, Leipzig, 1911). 

6 For the latter, see in general Fehrle, Die kultische Keuschheit im Altertum 
(Giessen, 1910), and p. 614 below. 


516 THE SEX OF DEITIES 


Nanza in Elymais in order to seize the temple treasures as a “‘ dowry ” 
(2 Mace. i. 14)—a trick he is said to have tried at Hierapolis—and 
when Demetrius, son of Antigonus (c. 300 B.c.), had rooms at the 
back of the Parthenon, and was entertained by Athene, and when 
Anthony agreed to marry Athene at Athens for her dowry of a thousand 
talents, each as the “‘ husband”’ of the goddess could legitimatize 
his claims.1 Such marriages would be as intelligible in their day 
as when Reuben, Absalom, and Adonijah by their several actions 
laid claim to the rights and privileges of their fathers (see Lectures, 
467 n. 2; Kinship, 109 sq.). In other words, the more conspicuous 
ideas associated with marriage are those not only of fertility and 
productivity, but also of appropriation and transmission of rights, 
the woman being the vehicle (even as parentage is at times ascribed 
solely to the father, the mother being the nurturer of the child), or 
the one in whom rights or powers are vested.2 See further below, 
pp. 613, 637 sq. 

P. 52. Coanct or Srx.—For examples of such changes see 
Kinship, 304 sqq. (Allat, Sowa, etc.). The male Ruda (}y7) becomes 
female (Lidzbarski, Hphemeris, iii. 92). Shamash, the sun-god, is 
treated as feminine in one of the Amarna Letters (Knudtzon, No. 323, 
from Askalon), also in South Arabia (KAT. 139; Nielsen, 321). In 
the treaty between Shubbiluliuma of Hatti and Mattiuaza of Mitanni, 
the goddess Shamash of Arinna, before whom a copy is placed, 
‘* grants kingship and queenship,” and was presumably the patroness 
of the dynasty. ‘Athtar in South Arabia was both baal and mother 
(Barton, Semitic Origins, 125 sqq.), and in Babylonia Ishtar was male 
as morning-star and female as evening-star. The god Tammuz has 
at times feminine titles (Jastrow, Rel. Belief in Bab. and Ass. 347 n. ; 
Burney, Judges, xix.). 

The goddesses of Babylonia are mostly colourless—merely feminines 
(Jastrow, 124 sq.), and Wellhausen remarks that the Semitic male 
and female deities are not, primarily at least, married couples. The 


1In the Twenty-fifth Dynasty marriage with the Theban royal priestess, the 
‘“‘ adoratrix of the god,” secured the Pharaoh’s position (CAH. iii. 268, 273; 
GB. ii. 134). 

2 Among the Garos of Assam “‘ a woman is merely the vehicle by which property 
descends from one generation to another” (Frazer, Tot. Ex. iv. 297, citing 
Playfair, The Garos, 71 sqg.). On an African custom for the eldest son to inherit 
all his father’s wives, see FOT., 1.541 and n.3. The mock king at the Babylonian 
Sacza took the king’s concubines (GB. ix. 355), and the supposed incarnation 
of the dead king in Bunyoro during his reign of a week had the royal widows 
(Frazer, GB. abbreviated ed., p. vi, citing Roscoe, Soul of Central Africa, 200). 
In Mexico the youth who represented the god Tezcatlipoca was married to four 
girls representing the four seasons, and was subsequently sacrificed (@B. ix. 278 sq.). 


MOTHER EARTH 517 


causes of change of sex are not necessarily due to change in type of 
kinship. The desire to possess a deity with feminine attributes will 
account for the transformation, in the Far East, of the male Avalo- 
kiteshvara into the Chinese and Japanese Kuanyin, the goddess of 
mercy (Bertholet and Lehmann, Lehrbuch d. Rel. gesch. i. 238). But 
the deity can be alike male and female. Thus Gudea addresses the 
mother-goddess Gatumdag as mother and father (Dhorme, 166), 
Ningirsu is both “‘ mother” and “lord” (CAH. i.? 208), and 
Ikhnaton’s sun-god is mother and father—in that order.! Besides 
the bi-sexual references to Yahweh (Deut. xxxii. 18; Isa. xlvi. 3), 
there are striking phrases in the Odes of Solomon (in xix. the Father is 
milked by the Holy Spirit).2. But whereas impassioned religious feeling 
finds in its deity the highest male and female attributes, only at a secon- 
dary stage does art represent it as hermaphrodite (cf. Lagrange, 139).? 

P. 52. MornerR Eartu.—Pindar’s belief (Nem. vi. i. 2; cf. Hesiod, 
Works, 108) finds its parallel in Ecclesiasticus xl. 1, less clearly in 
Job i. 21. Greek influence might be suspected in these passages, but, 
in its more undeveloped forms, the idea is not strange to the Semites.* 
After all, the Semites were at an early date in touch with Hittite, 
Mitannian, and other northern peoples, and the line between Semitic 
and Greek thought must not be drawn too rigidly (cf. p. 495 sq.). As 
against Dieterich (Mutter Erde), Nilsson (Greek Rel, 122) argues that 
Earth as “ all mother,” represents the idea of Nature rather than a 
real divinity. Her person is that of a woman whose lower limbs are 
hidden in the ground; it is the conception that seems to lie behind 
Ps. exxxix. 15. Man is formed from the earth. He is moulded— 
the Hebrew verb is used of the potter’s craft; cf. Prometheus, and 


1 Breasted, Rel. and Thought in Ancient Egypt, 318, 330, 334; cf. Farnell, 
Evol. of Rel. 180 (from a North American tribe, “‘ Who is my mother, who is my 
father ? Only Thou, O God’’). 

2 Cf. the hymns of Namdev and Tukaram to Vithoba (Krishna); see Bouquet, 
in Theology, viii. 203, Macnicol, Indian Theis, 123, 218. 

3 Sex is secondary when, elsewhere, the bull-roarer is used in connexion with 
fertility-rites : in New Guinea it is produced when the yams are ready for digging, 
and is then called “‘ mother of yams ” (Haddon, Study of Man, 305 sq.). In another 
case it is differentiated into male and female (Journ. of Royal Anthrop. Inst. xiv. 
312). Frazer also cites the use of ‘‘ male” and “‘ female ”’ flutes used after circum- 
cision rites in German North Guinea (Schellong, Internat. Archw f. Ethnog. 
ii. 156). 

4 See Néldeke, Archiv f. Relig. viii. 161 sq. ; Baudissin, 20 n. 1, 443 sq., 505 sq. 

5 For Berosus (p. 43 above) see Lagrange, 386, and for other Bab. evidence, 
1b. 229, 385; KAT. 497; Dhorme, Archiv f. Relig. viii. 550 sqg.; L. W. King, 
Seven Tablets of Creation, i. xxxiii sg. Ea made men of clay, and of clay Aruru made 
Engidu. Proper names meaning “‘ son (daughter) of the earth ” (abil, mar [marat] 
irsitim) are cited by Ranke. 


518 IDEAS OF CREATION 


Khnum of Egypt; Ishtar is also called the potter. The metaphorical 
use of the word “‘ seed,’ and the common association of human life 
with the rest of nature, is perhaps of more significance than the differ- 
ence which is drawn between animal or human life and vegetable life, 
and which is emphasized by W. R. S. when he seeks to trace the 
development of the primitive sacrifice. 

That the account of creation, as it stands in Gen. ii., is absolutely 
more primitive than that in ch. i. (p. 106 n. 1) is not easily deter- 
mined. Already in ii. 5 sg. two conceptions can be distinguished 
(flood [?] and rain as sources of fertility, Skinner, Gen. 55 sq.). 
In ch. i. plants and animals are produced from the earth by the divine 
command. ‘“‘ The earth itself is conceived as endowed with pro- 
ductive power” (Skinner, 23). Similarly, Yahweh “calls” for the 
corn in Ezek. xxxvi. 29, and it responds; while the Babylonian 
Tablet of Creation opens with a reference to the time when neither 
heaven nor earth nor the gods had been ‘“‘ named.” In Babylonian 
speculation a mental image (zikru) seems to precede physical creation 
(Skinner, 31 sg., see Hehn in the Sachau-Festschrift, 46)—that the 
Platonic archetypal ideas have their forerunner among early and 
primitive peoples was observed long ago by Tylor (Primitive Culture, 
li. 244 sq.). Evidently some intrinsic or immanent productive power 
is implied in Gen. i., as also in the case of the processes of birth which 
the god is believed to control (p. 513). It is noteworthy that the 
brooding (?) spirit in Gen. i. 2 plays no further part in the biblical 
cosmogony; it may have come in from another (? Phoenician) 
cosmogony.! Skinner (Gen. 18) suggests that the spirit perhaps 
symbolizes ‘‘an immanent principle of life and order in the as yet 
undeveloped chaos.” It is, in effect, difficult to grasp with precision 
the ideas of growth and production that prevailed among ancient 
and primitive peoples, and precisely how far processes were natural 
or supernatural, or merely taken for granted (see pp. 535, 586). At 
all events, the idea that the earth has a certain inherent power or 
life of its own, and that man is in some way bound up therewith, 
explains how, in Manichzan dualism, when all the “‘ light” has been 
separated from the ‘‘ dark,” there remains the Dark Matter, the 
Clod (Bélos) (Burkitt, Rel. of the Manichees, 65 sq.; 8. A. Cook, Journ. 
of Theol. Stud. xxvi. 389). 

P. 54. Fear aNnD THE Gops.—The “‘ eloquent French writer,” 
Renan (Hist. d@’ Israel, i. 29), quoting Statius (Theb. iii. 661), endorses 


ce 


1 See Meyer, Jsraeliten, 213 and n.; and on the way in which the idea of the 
creative efficacy of the divine spirit (ru) verges on immanence and pantheism, 
see Baudissin, 443 sq., 505 sq. 


FEAR AND THE GODS 519 


& view current among the Epicurean philosophers, found in Lucretius, 
and still frequently reiterated. To some extent it is well founded.} 
Fear is undoubtedly a powerful element in Semitic religion.2 Gloom 
is characteristic (see p. 258), and Baudissin (57 sq.) considers that fear 
of the gods and dependence upon them are typically Semitic. Yet 
W. BR. S. finds divine immanence as well as ‘‘ transcendence’ among 
the Semites (p. 194). Fear of ghosts and of the dead is undoubtedly 
prominent in religion (pp. 323 n., 370 n. 1), and there is fear of the 
jinn (p. 123 sq.); but W. R. S. maintains that fear of the supernatural 
paralyses progress (pp. 154, 395), and is the negation of moral order. 
A working relationship with unseen forces appears in the most primi- 
tive societies (pp. 53, 137); and certainly, where fear predominates 
among primitive peoples, the communities are unstable and un- 
progressive. Ignorance of causes and ignorance of the important 
physiological functions are common sources of fear, and although fear 
is dormant and easily aroused, the conquest of nature and the victory 
over fear of the unknown are the beginning of social development 
(p. 121 sgq.). 

Anthropology and psychology support W. R. S. ‘‘ The maxim 
that fear first made gods in the universe is certainly not true in the light 
of anthropology ” (Malinowski, in Science, Religion, and Reality, ed. 
Needham, 82). Durkheim (224) positively asserts that the primitive 
regards his gods as friends, kinsmen, and protectors. So usual is this 
that in due course only the uncertain, arbitrary, and hostile spirits are 
respected. ‘* Although fear is a cause, it is certainly not the sufficient 
reason of religion’ (Galloway, Philosophy of Rel. 75). ‘* There is no 
quality in fear that fits it to be the so-called original religious emotion ”’ 
(Leuba, Psychological Study of Rel. 129). Fear is a running away, it 
is harmful; there is an emotional progression in religion, and fear 
yields to awe (id. 132). ‘‘ Fear’? does not explain the history of 
religion, whereas “‘ awe”’ is another feeling, a recognition of greatness 
and a sense of a not unfriendly relation with the cosmos (id. 146 sq.). 
Fear is only true if we admit wonder, admiration, respect, and even 
love; though “ reverence . .. or the sense of discipline would be 
impossible but for the dash of fear that they contain.” * ‘This is not 


1 The words are also found in Petronius, Frag. xxvii. 1 (cf. Servius, ad Virg. 
fin. ii, 715), though Statius has the better claim. (So Mr.W. T. Vesey of Gonville 
and Caius College, Cambridge, in a private communication.) 

2See Noéldeke, ERE., ‘“‘ Arabs,” 660a, and Arch. f. Rel., 1898, pp. 361 sqq.; cf. 
Ar. ittacd, ‘‘ be pious,” etc., properly ‘‘ be on one’s guard.”” On the suggested 
connexion between wah, ‘‘ god,” and ’aliha, ‘‘ fear, dread,” see Kautzsch, E.B1. 
col, 3324, § 115; Fischer, Zslamica, i. 391. 

3 Marett, Psychol. and Folk-lore, 160; Threshold of Rel. 13. 


520 MOTHER OF THE GODS 


inhibition but self-restraint. Fear can crush and kill; but it is not 
the ignorance of peril, it is the consciousness of it, the renewal of self- 
confidence, the act of readjustment as a mental and moral growth, 
which mark the progressive steps (Crawley, T'ree of Life, 291 sq.; cf. 
Durkheim, 223 sq.). The subject is of extreme methodological im- 
portance, and W. R. 8. treats it dynamically; for the history of re- 
ligions and of religion in general, the phases of awe, confidence, 
etc., are throughout more significant than those of fear, dread, etc. 

P. 56. Au-Lat, MoTHER of THE Gops.—The great mother-goddess 
Ishtar, patroness of birth (as her name Mylitta indicates, Herod. i. 131, 
199), was “‘ creator”’ (banat), and ‘‘ mistress” (belit) of the gods, and 
is ideographically described as a potter. The well-known type re- 
presents her with open breast and a suckling on her left arm. With 
another “‘ mistress of the gods,” Damkina (the Aav«n of Damascius), the 
wife of Ea and mother of Marduk, and with Isis, the mother of Horus, 
Ishtar is a powerful intercessor in Assyria, and a prototype of the 
Madonna, and of the figure in the vision in Rev. xii.1_ Among the great 
‘* mothers ”’ (Anahita, Cybele, etc.) is Lat or rather Allat.2 Apparently 
a sun-goddess (Wellh. 33), in Palmyra she is found coupled with 
Shamash (Cooke, 275 sq.), and the equation nb(s)2m1— Abn vddapos 
(the son of Zenobia) points to her identification with Athene, who 
is named in Greek inscriptions from Hauran (Wadd. 2203, etc.), 
appears on coins of Gabala, etc., and was worshipped at Emesa. 
An altar found at Cordova names, among Syrian deities, va¢aa 
(Al-‘Ozza) and (’A)6nva *A\AaO (Arch. f. Rel. xxii. 127). As “Ahthkar— 
Urania (Herod. iii. 8) she is mother of Orotal—Dionysus, to whom 
corresponds the Nabatzan Dushara. The mother and son are 
associated at Petra; but at Hejra (CJS. ii. 198) she stands second. 
For Allat as a chthonic goddess, see p. 566. 

The Petra festival has been much discussed.* Mithraic and 
Christian influence has been suspected. Wellhausen and Lagrange 
urge that the cult of a child-god is contrary to Semitic feeling (cf. 
De Syria Dea, xxxv.). On the other hand, ‘Aziz (jy) or Ares, vener- 
ated at Edessa, and named with Arsu (}¥98) on a Palmyrene in- 
scription (Cooke, 295 sq.), is the bonus puer of a Greek inscription at 
Soada and of Dacian inscriptions (see Kinship, 302).4 Youthful gods 


1 KAT. 360 sq., 428 sq., 440; Nielsen, Der dreieinige Gott, i. 337 sqq. 

* Nabatzan inscription from Salhad, Vogiié 8=CJS. ii. 185. 

3 See Wellhausen, 49; Lagrange, 189 n.; Cumont, CR. of the Acad. d. Inscr., 
1911, p. 293; W. Weber, Arch. f. Rel. xix. 331 sqq. 

4 With the Palmyrene inscription is the representation of various figures, 
including a woman with a child on her knees, Beit. z. Assyriol., 1902, p. 221 ; 
Cumont, Etudes Syr. 272; Nielsen, 122 sq. 


FEMALE DEITIES 521 


are by no means unknown (Baudissin, Adonis, Index, s.v. ‘‘ jugendliche 
gétter’’), and the influence of Isis and Harpocrates is possible. Of 
greater interest is the relief found at Petra itself, representing a winged 
child contending with winged lion-headed monsters, which Dalman 
is tempted to associate with the cult of Dusares.1 

Al-‘Ozza (p. 57 n.), with Allat and Manat, the three “‘ daughters 
of Allah,” in the Coran, is the ‘‘ lady ‘Ozzai’’ to whom a man in a 
South Arabian inscription offers a golden image on behalf of his sick 
daughter Amath-Ozzai (Nielsen, Der dreieinige Gott, 318). Human 
sacrifice and licentious practices distinguish her cult. Isaac of 
Antioch identified her with Beltis, and calls her the “Star” (see Kin- 
ship, 300 sq., Wellh. 40 sq.). 

P. 58. Femate Derrres.—The prominence of female deities is also 
explained by the considerable share of women in labour and manage- 
ment (cf. Wellhausen, 208 sq., and, on women’s part in primitive 
agriculture, Frazer, GB. vii. 113 sqq.). There are many examples of 
mother-right (see the summary by E. Meyer, Gresch. des Alt. i. 1, § 10) ; 
but fluctuations in the position of women and recurring transitions 
from one type of kinship to another are to be recognized rather than 
any single sociological development. The position of women is not 
necessarily the measure to a people’s civilization ; and while, on the 
one hand, females in subjection to their husbands were not necessarily 
without rights and responsibilities, on the other hand, in Assyrian law, 
where the woman remains in her father’s house, she has not the free- 
dom that this type of marriage might have led us to expect. The 
superior position of the mother’s brother among the Bedouins,’ and the 
Talmudic references to the resemblance between children and the 
mother’s brother (Kinship, 195 n. 1), are among the elements that go 
to distinguish mother-kinship, though in themselves they are not 
necessarily derived from any such system ; and in general the question 
of the relation between female deities and the treatment of women is 
much more complicated than when W. R. 8. wrote. 


1 Dalman (Petra und seine Felsheiligtiimer (Leipzig, 1908], 355 sq.) refers to the 
winged Horus on the Louvre seal of Baal-nathan (Lidzbarski, Hphem. i. 140 n.), and 
the boy holding a serpent, on the Taanach altar (Sellin, Tell Ta‘annek, i. 77; Vincent, 
Canaan, 185). See further Nielsen, Handbuch d. altarab-Aitertumskunde, 230 sq. 

2 Koschaker, MV AG. 1921, pp. 60 sqqg.; Ebeling in Gressmann, Altorient. 
Texte z. A.T.2, 415, §§ 25 sqg.; cf. the much stronger Californian and other cases 
cited by Westermarck, Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, i. 657. 

3 See G. Jacob, Studien, iii.: Leben d. vorislam. Bed.2 40. 

4It may be added that in Palestine many a modern shrine is consecrated 
to a female who is sometimes associated with a male, whose sister or daughter 
she is (Schumacher, Jaulan, 209; Qy. St. of the#Palestine Explor. Fund, 1875, 
p. 209; 1877, p. 99). 


522 IDEAS OF AUTHORITY 


P. 58 n. 1.—See Keilinschrift Bibliothek, ii. 251; cf. the now well- 
known hymn, L. W. King, Seven Tablets of Creation, i. 222 sqq.; 
Gressmann, Altorient. Texte z. Alien Test.1, 85 sq., 2257 sqq.; and 
excerpts in Peake, People and the Book, 50 sq., Wardle, Israel and 
Babylon, 76 sqq. 

P. 60. AuTHoRITY.—W. R. S. is dealing with the ideas of govern- 
ment, administration and authority, human and divine, and the 
relationship between rulers and subjects. The ‘‘ king” is properly a 
counsellor (p. 62 n.)—cf. the title Sayyid (speaker) and the Heb. 
sod (counsel)—and had typical religious or priestly duties. Similarly 
the modern sheikh has certain religious duties : when there is war he 
will make vows to the ancestral weli or saint, offer sacrifices at the 
tomb venerated by the tribe, and proclaim a fast in case of drought. 
There was no absolute monarchy, and, except in so far as his special 
functions were concerned, even a Babylonian king had no more 
rights than a private citizen.1 The authority of parents was, and is, 
weak (Kinship, 68 sq.), and Westermarck (Moral Ideas, i. 599 sq., 607) 
contrasts this weakness among rudimentary peoples with the parental 
authority among those more civilized. None the less, an Arab father 
may expect an almost servile deference (Lectures, 563); there might 
be stern treatment of children (Prov. xix. 18, with Toy’s note), and a 
rebellious son might be stoned (Deut. xxi. 21; cf. Targum on Kecles. 
iii. 2). Yet even as regards the wife there was no patria potestas in 
the Roman sense; she did not change her kin on marriage (Kinship, 
66 n., 77, 122, 142, 203); and as regards the ‘ebed (servant), care must 
be taken not to read too much into the term (p. 68 sq.). 

In the absence of an explicit constitution or organization, things 
are left to the will of a few individuals on the one hand, to custom on 
the other. For Arabia ‘‘ the words noblesse oblige are no mere phrase 
but the complete truth.” 2 In Israel there were things that ought or 
ought not to be done; and a distinction was drawn between the days 
of unrestrained individuality and the unifying tendency of the 
monarchy. As for Arabia, Wellhausen lays stress upon the secular 
ideas of Right: the religious root has withered away; Right is pro- 
fane, and not, as in Israel, bound up with religion (op. cit. 14 sg.). In 
the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, law has been almost severed from 
religion, society is divided into classes, and the general conditions are 
more advanced than those presupposed by the Israelite collections of 
laws. Neither among the loosely knit Arabian tribes nor in a Baby- 
lonia shortly to fall before invading Kassites, can we expect to find a 

1 Jastrow, Rel. Beliefs of Bab. and Ass., 384 sg. (with which cf. CAH.? i, 412). 


On the restriction of monarchical power in Israel, see Day, AJSL. xl. 98 sqq. 
2 Wellhausen, Ein Gemeinwesen ohne Obrigkeit, 7 (Géttingen, 1900). 


<i ea 


THE SOCIAL MECHANISM 523 


starting-point for our conception of ancient authority, and another 
approach must be sought. 

It would seem that self-redress is more marked among the lower 
and simpler stages of society (viz. the Lower and Higher Hunters), 
whereas among Agriculturists more attention is paid to the main- 
tenance of order, and public control is more in evidence. The devel- 
opment of social order may be roughly correlated with advance in 
economic culture; and, as we advance from the Lower Hunters, we 
get larger societies, and by degrees provision is made for the adminis- 
tration of justice within these extended groups. Periodical gather- 
ings for religious, social, and judicial purposes are found among many 
primitive peoples (I. King, Development of Religion, 89 sq., 100); and 
systematic lawlessness and lynch law, or the general absence of custom- 
ary restraint, may be regarded not as a primary stage in the evolution 
of order, but as a transition between the decline and fall of one period 
of development and the inauguration of another. What is funda- 
mental is the stage where religious custom and social custom are more 
or less closely interrelated parts of one organism or system. 

In ordeals and oaths, in curses and blessings, and in regulative and 
restrictive taboos there is an implicit mechanism which is for the 
systematization of society.2, W. R. S. himself (p. 162 sg.) comments 
upon the “instrinic power of holy things to vindicate themselves,” 
and on the difference between man’s confidence in it and the con- 
viction that it is not safe to wait until the god vindicates himself 
(see below, p. 550). The difference is important, for here is to be 
sought the root of authority: the mechanism already implicit in the 
social structure and its development, on the one side, and, on the other, 
the individuals who by virtue of rank or ability are representatives, in 
one sense, of the group, and, in another, of this mechanism (see p. 591). 
Nowhere does there exist any vaguely abstract “‘ group-mind”’; and 
even in Australia, where there is a “‘ confmon consent to the observance 
of certain rules’ over very large tracts, it is the elders who commonly 
uphold and enforce the customary law. The headmen will form a 
council, and at the great initiation ceremonies there will be an exchange 
of ideas leading to modification and uniformity.t Even among 
rudimentary peoples, where the group-mind, the social mechanism, 


1 Hobhouse, Wheeler, and Ginsberg, The Material Culture of the Simpler Peoples, 
46 sqq., 82. 

2 See, e.g., Frazer, Psyche’s Task? (1913; with the sub-title, “a discourse con- 
cerning the influence of superstitition on the growth of institutions ”’). 

3G. P. Wheeler, The Tribe, 9. 

4 Wheeler, 81; Crawley, Mystic Rose, 143 sqq., 181 sqqg.; Westermarck, Moral 
Ideas, i. 603 sgq., 619. 


524 CONTINUITY AND AUTHORITY 


and the absence of individual enterprise seem most predominant, 
important changes can be made. Spencer and Gillen (Native Tribes of 
Central Australia, 12 sq., 14 sq.) comment on the authority exercised 
by powerful men in introducing changes that are felt to be bene- 
ficial to the tribe ; and among the Omaha the words “‘ and the people 
thought’ are the preamble to every change, which, of course, is due 
not to an abstract “‘ group-mind,” but to the “* authorities’ for the 
time being (Hartland, Primitive Law, 204 sqq., esp. 209). 

Continuity amid change, and with the maintenance of the idea 
of authority—this is the fundamental conception the discussion of 
which W. R. 8S. opens. The great changes in the past can be ascribed 
to men who, by their superior personality, have wielded an authority 
which was above local vanity and rivalry. They were pre-eminently 
religious leaders (e.g. Moses and Mohammed, see p. 70), or primarily 
religious teachers or reformers like the prophets, or they were out- 
standing rulers, men whose rise was attended with significant social 
or political developments. Throughout, owing to the personal 
influence of such men, there was apt to be extreme arbitrariness and 
caprice, and an absence of stability (cf. W. R. S., Prophets of Israel, 
94; CAH. i.? 210 sq., 216) ; and owing to the divine authority claimed 
by or freely granted to them, the problem of ‘ true” or “ false” 
in the sphere of religion (e.g. as regards prophets, “‘ sacred’ men, 
or Messiahs) quickly arose. In Babylonia the divine authority of 
rulers, priests, and judges meant that misfortune and wrong-doing 
could shake confidence alike in the representative individuals or in 
the god or gods whose mouthpiece, vehicle, or representative they 
were supposed to be (cf. Jastrow, Rel. Beliefs, 275 sq.). In the old 
Egyptian tale of the ‘ Eloquent Peasant,” the underlying idea is 
that ‘‘the norm of just procedure is in the hands of the ruling class ; 
if they fail, where else shall it be found ?’’1 When reliance is placed 
upon some pre-eminent authority, forged sayings may be attributed 
to him and circulated by interested though conflicting parties (as 
in the case of Mohammed, Hncy. Brit. xvii. 414c, d). But authority 
is also found in the principle vox popult vox der; and, says a tradition 
of Mohammed, “‘ my people will never agree in an error” (loc. cit. 
416a). The Coran remains the norm and authority of Islam ;? 
but a written authority needs supplementing, and by the side of the 
Jewish ‘‘ written law”’ there grew up the “‘ oral law” (see W. R. S., 
Old Test. in the Jewish Church, 45 sqq.). The sacred myths and tradi- 
tions of a people represent, strictly speaking, only the particular stage 


1 Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, 221. 
2See C. H. Toy, “The Semitic Conception of Absolute Law,” Néldeke- 
Festschrift, 802. 


SOCIETY A MORAL FORCE 525 


of thought at which they severally arose; but a canonical literature 
extending—like the Old Testament, and more especially the whole 
Bible—over centuries of most vital development, affords a more 
objective basis for a dynamic conception of authority. The Bible, 
together with the apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings of Jews 
and early Christians, presents a unique example of what has been 
called “‘ the law of religious historiography ’’—the renovation and 
transformation of earlier authoritative sources in order to make them 
comply with the requirements of the present.1 Renovation or re- 
writing is succeeded in course of time by reinterpretation ; and it 
is proper to refer to W. R. S8.’s anxiety in his Old Testament in the 
Jewish Church (especially the Preface and opening chapter) to show 
that there can be continuity in reinterpretation, however revolutionary 
the new stage might seem to be. 

Society, viewed as a whole, is a moral force (cf. Wellhausen, Heid. 
226); and, as W. R. 8. points out, the group-unit includes the gods. 
But ultimate authority does not lie in the empirical and visible group 
which is developed by its more energetic and critical constituents, 
nor does it lie precisely in the system of ideas uniting the group and its 
outstanding individuals with the sphere of the supernatural or super- 
sensuous as understood at the time. The great prophets, it is true, 
spoke as though they were recalling the people to an earlier ideal 
from which they had fallen, but the ideal of which they themselves 
became conscious did not, in the most conspicuous cases, lead back 
to an actual event of ancient history, but to a reinterpretation of 
it which was pregnant for the future. The system of ideas was 
enlarged, and, this being a general truth, ultimate authority is seen 
to lie in the ultimate whole of which the several groups and systems 
of ideas are the imperfectly developed parts. Ideas of governance 
and authority are apt to be undifferentiated among ancient or 
primitive peoples, and accordingly thére is a relation between social 
order and the world order which often amounts to an identity. This 
accounts alike for the most impressive of religious beliefs and for the 
most extraordinary of magical practices. W. R. S. is mainly con- 
cerned with the ideas of social organization and of the organization 
of gods and worshippers; but the question of order in the social 
sphere and in the external world is of exceptional interest for the 
history of ideas, both of right and righteousness, and of the natural 
powers and functions of gods and of their human representatives. 
See below, p. 658. 

P. 67 n. 3.—See further KAT’. 470 sqq.; Lagrange, 99 sqy. The 


1 Kuenen, ‘“‘ The Critical Method,” in the Modern Review, i. (1880), 705 ; 
ef. S. A, Cook, Notes on O.T, History, 62, 


3 


526 THE “‘ MAN” OF THE GOD 


name of the Edomite king (Malik-ramu) is uncertain; see KAT. 
467. 

P. 68 n. 3.—The Pheenician reference is to Plautus, Panulus, 
994, 1001, 1141 sq.—auo auo donni hau amma silli hauon bene 
silli, ‘‘ hail, hail my lord! hail my mother! hail my son!” For 
another explanation, see L. H. Gray, Amer. Journ. of Sem. Lang. 
xxxix. 83. With the salutation compare (with Stiibe) Meleager 
of Gadara : 


"ANN ed prev Svpos eoai, Teddp’ ei Sodv cvye Hhoiné€, 
Avdovis’ ei S’ENAny, xaipe’ rd Saito Ppdcov, 


where Avdovis is Scaliger’s emendation (Wex, Melet. 29). 

P. 70. Compounps oF Imr, Amr.—On such compounds, see A. 
Fischer, slamica, i. 4, 880 sqgq. In the Hebrew Amariah, in 8S. Arabian 
names of the type IDNIN, WONDY, and in the Palmyrene RwrypN 
(aypicapoos) another interpretation has been suggested: Yahweh 
(etc.) promises or commands (see H.Bi. “‘ Amariah”; Cooke, 267). 
The Pheen, nanwe “man of Tanith” is doubtful (CIS. i. 542). In 
the corresponding Babylonian names Amel-Sin (KAT7'. 537, 540), 
Amel-Marduk (Evil-Merodach), Amel-Nusku, etc., the second element 
is a divine name. In§S. Arabian D4~ is used of one who belongs to 
a god (Hartmann, Islam. Orient, ii. 405). Methushael (Gen. iv. 18) 
is usually interpreted “‘ man of god ”’ (mutu-sha-il) ; but the relative 
particle is a difficulty (Gray, Heb. Prop. Names, 165n.). Methuselah 
may be a deliberate alteration, as though “‘ armed man” (Budde; see 
Skinner on Gen. v. 25). Apart from mu-ut-Baal in the Amarna 
Letters, 255 1. 3, the clearest example is the name of the Tyrian king 
of circ. 900 B.c., Mefovdorapros, “‘man of Astarte” (Jos. c. Ap. i. 18; 
Néldeke, #.Bi. col. 3286, § 42). 

P. 74. Monoturism.—W. R. 8S. consistently denied that the 
Semites had any particular capacity for monotheism; see Lectures and 
Essays, 425 sq. (an article written in 1877), 612 (a review of Renan’s 
Histoire, 1887). On the other hand, Néldeke (Sketches from Hastern 
History, 5 [1892]) considers that there are strong tendencies to mono- 
theism among the Semites, Baudissin (ZDMG. 1903, p. 836) holds 
that a clearer recognition of divine unity characterizes Semitic religion, 
and, not to mention other names, the division of opinion indicates 
that the problem of monotheism in general and of Semitic monotheism 
in particular stands in need of restatement. 

In the first place, there are certain tendencies which make for 
polytheism (polydemonism, etc.) and for monotheism (henotheism, 
etc.). So, as regards the former, (a) specialization of function provides 
deities with helpers and subordinates; (b) deities (spirits, etc.) are 


FACTORS OF POLYTHEISM AND MONOTHEISM 527 


postulated to account for new or strange phenomena that lie outside 
the usual activities of the known gods; (c) keener analysis of pro- 
cesses multiplies the gods (like the twelve Indigitamenta of Rome 
who presided over the twelve successive stages in the labours of the 
agriculturist); (d) personifications and abstractions multiply even to 
the extent of describing every phenomenon of the emotional or mental 
life as a “‘ god” ;1 (e) gods are differentiated, with the result that 
epithets, or manifestations, or embodiments become separate and 
distinct deities; (jf) impersonal processes are replaced or supple- 
mented by personal agencies (e.g., the Indian wind-gods Vayu and 
Surya are more personal than Vata and Savitar); (g) gods are 
introduced from elsewhere by reformers, etc.; and (h) new 
gods arise when the old traditional gods are felt to be remote or 
useless. 

Among the tendencies which make for monotheism are (a) co- 
ordination of attributes or functions, when one god takes over those 
of others; (b) the recognition of the points of similarity among 
different local, national, or functional gods; (c) the disinclination 
to tolerate rival powers; (d) social or political alliance or fusion, 
involving the co-ordination or fusion of gods; (e) the rise through 
historical circumstances of one god above others through pre-eminence 
of a city, priesthood, or ruler, or through spread of cult; and (f) the 
introduction of a new god who drives out or supersedes the rest. 
The rise of Re of Heliopolis in the Fifth Dynasty, and in Babylonia 
of Enlil of Nippur, later of Marduk (in the First Babylonian Dynasty), 
and later still of Asshur, are illustrations of (e). In the royal names 
Shamshi-Adad and in a divine name like Ishtar-Chemosh are unifying 
tendencies which make for monotheism (or rather henotheism); a 
combination of deities of different sexes may also perhaps be recognized 
in the Sabean nbxdes (see Meyer, Israel. 212 n.). On the oft-cited 
tablet where Ninib (Ninurta) is Marduk of strength, Shamash Marduk 
of justice, and Adad, Nergal, etc., Marduk of rain, battle, etc., see 
Wardle, Israel and Babylon, 136. 

Next, in the ebb and flow of religion there is a tendency for the 
masses to find the national religion—that of the rulers and priests— 
unintelligible, or out of touch with popular needs. The Great Gods, 
though not ignored or unknown, become remote, and the practical 
religion in the Mohammedan East is not that of Allah but of the local 


1 Cf. Nilsson, Greek Religion, 270, and ERE. s.v. ‘‘ Personification.” How to 
draw the line between a personification which is mythological and polytheistic and 
one that is purely poetical is a problem of methodology ; for a recezt discussion 
of the data, see Paul Heinisch, Personifikationen und Hypostasen im A.T. und im 
Alten Orient (Biblische Zeitfragen, ix. 10-12, Miinster i. W., 1921). 


528 DEGREE OF DEITY 


saints! All sorts of local and private beliefs and practices will 
flourish ; outstanding men impress themselves upon the popular 
imagination, a remarkable case being the Sicilian cult of the Decollati 
or Executed Criminals.2 Efforts, it is true, will be made to render 
the local cults orthodox, and everywhere typical problems arise 
touching the relation between the higher forms of religion (orthodox, 
national, etc.) and the lower (popular, private, etc.); see CAH. iii. 
432 sqq. Again, besides the condemnation of a religion by reformers, 
there is the repeated recognition that the god is not to be restricted 
locally, nationally, or dogmatically. Indeed, Yahweh himself is said 
to be known to, though not explicitly recognized by, other peoples 
than his own (Isa. lxv. 1), and it is impressively set forth that 
the recognized worshippers of a god are not necessarily true ones 
(Matt. vii. 22 sg., xxv. 41 sgqg.; Lk. xiii. 25 sqq.). In other words, the 
history of the vicissitudes of religion is the constantly recurring con- 
sciousness that what at any time passes for religion is not final. 

There are degrees of deity. At times pre-eminent individuals 
are regarded as at least semi-divine, or as more truly divine than 
the unseen, intangible. gods of tradition; and, at times, gods are 
thought of as little more than supermen. But there is also an intense 
consciousness of a Divine Power for whom human symbolism is 
imperfect, and ordinary anthropomorphism too meanly human. 
There are, from time to time, great movements which give a new 
impetus to a religion; and when they can be analysed, it is seen 
that sooner or later they take account of popular needs. The usual 
adjustment between the more individualistic reformers, or the men 
of outstanding spiritual ability, and the environment as a whole, 
with its variety of needs and capabilities, will explain those steps 
which, viewed from the outside, look like a compromise, a deteriora- 
tion, and a lapse from the original spiritual idealism (cf. CAH. iii. 
470, 486 sqg.). The ethical monotheism of the prophets did not by 
any means exclude later stages of henotheism, or even a virtual 
polytheism, and the prevalence of superstitions such as commonly 
rule among the simpler minds. To be sure, the prophets had intro- 
duced a new wave of religious idealism ; but a distinction is to be 
drawn between the positive contributions of fresh spiritual move- 
ments and the subsequent systematization which makes the religion 
of a group seem closely akin to the earlier system prior to that move- 
ment, although it is vastly different owing to the new influences. 


1 Cf. also Lagrange, 25: “‘ Dans la religion catholique . . . il faut que lautorité 
jutte sans cesse contre la tendance qui frustrerait le Créateur du culte qui n’est 
diian’a hate a5. 

2 At Palermo. E.S. Hartland, Polk-lore, xxi. 172 sqq. 


SUPREME GODS 529 


In such reforming movements, instead of a new god, an old one 
may be brought forward, and in a new dress (e.g. the Egyptian Aton, 
Apollo). Sometimes, the attributes of existing gods are so fixed 
that this is impossible: for the meanings of words cannot always 
be adjusted to suit new tendencies in religion. In the history of 
religion, besides the various changes of supreme importance which 
can be clearly recognized, others can certainly be assumed, as in the 
introduction of the fine ethical god Varuna of the Rig-Veda, who was 
known to the Hatti and Mitannians (c. fourteenth century), and subse- 
quently became the Ahura-Mazda of Zoroastrianism. But the sort 
of reformation that can often be traced or definitely postulated must 
also be postulated to explain all other significant developments which 
have occurred in the history of religion. Besides the particular 
tendencies to polytheism and to monotheism, there are, then, the 
great vicissitudes of religion in history, and in particular, the numerous 
creative movements—naturally varying greatly in significance— 
which indicate the sort of process that, mutatis mutandis, must have 
been in operation, on however humble a scale, ages before the history 
of religion can be traced. Not only is the religion of any one period 
not final, but behind the recognized god or gods of any age is the 
Power which man has been seeking to formulate. 

Hence, although much has been written on primitive mono- 
theism, or on the Great Gods who are found among rudimentary 
peoples, the facts have not precisely the value set upon them. These 
Supreme Beings are guardians of morality, founders of institutions, 
sometimes recognized by several tribes in common (e.g. in Australia ; 
Durkheim, 285 sqg.). At times they have a mythological rather than a 
religious value (Nilsson, 72), or they have a theoretical significance 
(Sdderblom, 123), or they are found in circles where the crudest 
beliefs and practices are normal.? The belief in a Supreme Being or 
All-Father does not seem to depend upon the stage of social progress ; 
in Borneo a low-grade tribe in the interior believes in a Supreme God 
while more advanced tribes on the coast are polytheists (I. King, 
211 sqg.). The really cardinal fact is threefold: (a) the insignificant 
place which the belief in a Supreme God often holds in the normal 
beliefs and customs of very rudimentary peoples ; (0) the unique in- 
fluence which theistic conceptions can have and have had in the 


1See Westermarck, Moral Ideas, ii. 670 sqq.; Sdderblom, Das Werden des 
Gottesglaubens (1923); K. Th. Preuss, Die héchste Gottheit ber den kulturarmen 
Vélkern (Psych. Forsch., 1922). 

2 ¢.g. among the Yagans whom Darwin visited, and the Marinds of New Guinea. 
See Semaine d’Ethnologie Religieuse a Tilbourg, 1922 (1923), 316 sqq., 384 sqq., 
and Index, s.v. Monothéisme. 


34 


530 . SEMITIC MONOTHEISM 


history of life and thought; and (c) the very secondary place which 
the belief in a Supreme Being can come to hold even in advanced 
societies, and its inability to exclude effective beliefs and practices 
encircling other gods, deified ancestors, etc. 

Accordingly, monarchical monotheism in itself has not even the 
religious sentiment of the henotheist who places his own god above 
the rest (Lagrange, 24). Monotheism in itself is not necessarily the 
outcome of a deep religious spirit, but rather of philosophic thought 
(Jastrow, Rel. Belief in Bab. and Ass. 104 sq., 417). The tempera- 
ment and religious experience which makes for monotheism cannot 
be denied to primitive peoples.1 Among the Semites one can trace 
gods behind the gods, e.g. Anu, Enlil, and Ea are above and behind the 
Great Gods (Jastrow, 247); and it was possible, as in the Code of 
Hammurabi, to speak of Jiu as distinct from the recognized and 
specified gods. There is a similar ambiguity in Egypt as regards God, 
the god, or a god.” But the use of du, el, etc., among the Semites 
cannot be claimed in support of a primitive Semitic monotheism,* 
although the distribution of the term testifies to the consciousness 
that there was some common element among the gods. On the other 
hand, Semitic religion reflects a subjective unity, a unity of feeling 
and purpose, not a unity of composition (cf. Lectures, 418 sq., 426). 
There was not that systematizing power upon which monotheism as a 
doctrine depends ; and ethical monotheism, the worship of the God of 
the national group, a God who was righteous and holy himself and 
demanded righteousness and holiness in the life of his people, more 
naturally deserves to be called monotheism than the more sporadic 
and more isolated examples which have not affected the historical 
development of the tribes among whom they are found. 

A very important methodological principle is at stake. On the 
one hand there are the miscellaneous data for monotheisms and 
monotheistic movements; on the other, W. R. S.’s tendency (a) to 
emphasize the quality of the data of religion,* and (0) to sever sharply 
Christianity and the Bible from all other religion. On his view, 
the practical working of a religious belief, 7.e. the social-religious 
system, is far more significant for the systematic treatment of religions 


1 Paul Radin, Monotheism among Primitive Peoples (1924)—a useful study.. 

2 F. Li. Griffith (“ The Teaching of Amenophis,” Journ. of Eg. Arch. xii. 230) 
observes that the commonest expression for an unspecified deity is “the god” 
the term “ god ” or possibly “‘ a god ” is not uncommon, and the two terms seem 
to belong to different phrases rather than different ideas. 

3 Bevan, The Critical Review, 1897, p. 413 sq.; Meyer, Gesch. d. Alt. i. § 346 n. ; 
Jastrow, 105 ; Lidzbarski, Ephem. ii. 38; Hebn. 150 sqq. . 

4 Cf. Prophets, 88, 184, on the difference between the attitudes of Elisha and 
of Hosea to the religious movemen t at the rise of Jehu. 


SS 


THE GER 531 


than either the more isolated and occasional data, or those which lay 
outside the development of religion—as he understood it. The earliest 
conceivable systems are therefore of greater value than isolated beliefs, 
however sublime in themselves—like the belief in a Supreme Being— 
unless these can be shown to have left their mark upon the system. 
Ultimate problems arise of methodology and theology which W. R. 8S. 
ignored ; and it may be urged that it is easier to perceive how systema- 
tized animal-cults (as totemism) can flourish by the side of and in spite 
of unsystematized beliefs in an All-Father, than to treat such cults 
as derivations from or degradations of a systematized social-religious 
cult in which the All-Father had an organic part, or to regard the 
idea of a Supreme Being as a gradual promotion of a cult-object to 
supremacy. Whatever consciousness there may have been among 
rudimentary peoples in prehistoric ages of a Supreme Being, the 
social-religious system of the day must always have been in an 
intelligible relationship with the current physical, economic, moral, 
mental, and all other non-religious conditions. See further below, 
pp. 669 sqq. 

P. 76 n. 1.—See also Fraenkel, ‘‘ Schutzrecht d. Araber,’’ Néldeke- 
Festschrift, 293 sqq. 

P. 79 and n. 1. Tur Gitr.1—Cf. the Phoenician names 54N3, 
Sony, among the graffiti of Abydos (Lidzbarski, Hphem. iii. 
99 sq.), which describe the bearers as clients of the Tent and of the 
Temple. In CJS. i. 50 (qbnbnx j2 951073) the editors compare 
with the father’s name the Phcen. yada and the 8. Arab. Onbay 
(add also sanfyone, and cf. the Heb. Oholah and Oholibamah), and 
they suggest that such names mean “ tent of the god,” 1.e. sharing 
the same tent (similarly Lagrange, 118 n.). But, on the analogy of 
Shecaniah, ‘*‘ Yahweh dwells’? (among his worshippers), the com- 
pounds would indicate rather that the bearer is the habitation of the 
god. The gér can claim the help of his god, and at the present day 
aman passing a shrine will cry: “‘ and tanib ‘aléki, ya sitti, ya Badriyeh,”’ 
‘“‘T am a fanib to you, O my lady, O Badriyeh.” For fanib, he who 
touches the tent-rope and invokes and expects protection, see Kin- | 
ship, 49n., and above, p. 76. In names of the type xkooynpos the 
god (Cos) is, of course, the patron: ‘‘ Allah is the jar of the righteous ”’ 
(Kinship, p. 50n.1; cf. Néldeke, Sitz. Ber., Berlin, 1882, p. 1187 n. 6). 
On the ‘adr as a conditional curse, a means of forcing a covenant re- 
lation whereby the weak gains the protection of others, see Wester- 
marck, Morocco, i. 518 sqq., and below, p. 692. 

P. 80 n. 3.—CIS. ii. 904 does not recognize Euting’s reading. 

P. 80 n. 4.—For the Meccan custom Stiibe refers to Snouck- 


1 For the Larnaca inscription (p. 77), see Cooke, 67 sq.; Lagrange, 478 sq. 


532 BAAL OF HEAVEN 


Hurgronje, Mekka, ii. 28 sqq., 79 sq., 151); see also Gaudefroy-Demom- 
bynes, Pélerinage a la Mekke, 201 sqq. 

P. 92 n. 2.—It is still disputed whether Nimrod is a Libyan 
figure (EK. Meyer, Gesch. d. Alt. i. § 361 n.), or Babylonian (Skinner, 
Gen. 209; Kraeling, AJSL. xxxviii. 214; Prince, JAOS. xl. 202; 
Hommel, Hth. u. Geog. 184 n., and many others). 

P. 93 n.—Much older than these are the recently discovered Phoeni- 
cian inscriptions of Abibaal and Elbaal, kings of Gebal(Byblus). For 
the usage, cf. the numerous local ‘“ kings” in the Amarna Letters 
(e.g. Gezer, Lachish, etc., Megiddo, Taanach, etc). 

P. 94, etc. BaaL.1—W. R.S.’s pages have been found to need some 
modification. The name Baal is known in Arabia (p. 109n. 1), but it 
was not necessarily taken there by Arameans (Wellh. 146, Lagr. 90), 
at least as the name of a god.2 It is not a divine element in South 
Arabian nomenclature, El being used instead (Nielsen, Dreseinige Gott, 
97 sq.); though Ndéldeke is of opinion that a god Baal had once been 
known there (HERE. i. 664).2 “‘ Baal” could be applied at an early 
date to a heaven or sky god: a Baal of Heaven or Sky Baal occurs as 
the chief god in the Hamath inscription of c. 800 B.c. (Pognon, Inser. 
Sem. No. 86), and in a treaty between Esarhaddon and Baal, king of 
Tyre (seventh century); and he is prominent in the Persian age.* Sky- 
gods are of long standing ; in Egypt there are gods who are lords in 
heaven, and in Babylonia Damkina, wife of Ea, is queen (sharrat) of 
heaven and earth (KAT. 360), and Ishtar is queen or lady (belit) of 
heaven (2b. 425; cf. Amarna Letters, 23 1. 26). In Hittite treaties 
Teshub (a god of the Addu-Hadad—Ramman type) is lord of heaven 
and earth, and this title is borne by Sin and Shamash. In the Egypto- 
Hittite treaty the “‘ Lord of Heaven ’’ (Re-Sutekh [Set]) has with him 
a ‘‘ queen of heaven.” In the Amarna Letters Baal proper corresponds 
to Addu (or Hadad), and in Egyptian texts (especially of the thir- 
teenth century) Baal is well known as a war-god, causing terror, and 
associated with the mountains. Here he is god of rain and storm, 
and evidently to be equated with Set. He also has solar attri- 


1 See Lagrange, 83 sqqg.; Paton, ERE. s.v.; Baudissin, Adonis, 25 sgg. On 
place-names compounded with Baal (p. 94 n. 6), see Gray, Heb. Prop. Names, 
125 sqqg.; E.Bi. col. 3312. 

2 Nor, according to Barton (75 n., 104 n. 5), is there reason to believe that the 
date-palm was of purely North Semitic origin. 

3 See now Nielsen, Handbuch d. Altarab. Altertwmskunde (Copenhagen, 1927), 
i. 240 sq. 

4 Lidzbarski, Ephem. i. 243 sqq. (see first ii. 122); Hehn, 117 sg.; Nielsen, 
297 sqq. 

5 Gressmann, Baudissin-Festschrift, 191 sqg. In Ptolemaic Egypt a denomin- 
ative of the word ba‘al is used in the sense bése sein, freveln (202, No, 48; cf. above, 


BAALIM AND THE BAAL 533 


butes, and the imagery associates with him the bull, who was else- 
where associated with Baal and Yahweh—in Babylonia with Enlil 
(“* the sturdy bull”). The bull, a symbol of strength, prowess, and the 
roaring storm, was also a symbol of the power of the sun. The com- 
bination of solar and taurine epithets occurs with both the god and 
the Pharaoh; the latter ‘‘ cries like Addu in the sky” and is also a 
sun-god. The Assyrian name Shamshi-Adad reflects the same 
tendency to connect the two chief gods and their attributes ; it is a 
syncretizing, monotheizing tendency, and it suggests that Baal (Hadad) 
of Palestine would be a god of outstanding importance before he was 
succeeded by the Israelite Yahweh (see CAH. ii. 348 sq.). 

In the Amarna Letters Baal is ‘‘ im Heaven,’’ perhaps the first 
stage in the title ‘‘ Baal of Heaven.”’1 Gods of the sky could none 
the less be localized on earth (Wellh. 211), and the Sky Baal in due 
course is worshipped by the side of other gods and becomes the god of 
particular cities. The Baal of Harran was Sin, the moon-god ; but 
the particular attributes of the Baals afford no clue to the primary 
meaning of the term, and local Baals could have special attributes 
and functions as readily as do the modern welis. The distribution of 
the Baals as divine names would show that a certain similarity or con- 
nexion was felt to exist everywhere between them; but it does not 
follow that the local Baals gave rise to the conviction that there was a 
single supreme and clearly defined Baal, or that they are secondary 
differentiations of an original (prehistoric) Baal. The local saints, 
welts, and Madonnas are commonly the later forms of earlier local 
beings, and the relations between local or specialized deities and the 
Great Gods, whether rulers or merely otiose, would be as variable 
in the unknown past as they are in those periods where they can be 
more or less clearly recognized (cf. CAH. iii. 433). 

A distinction may be drawn between ba‘al, used of men and gods, 
and ’él, used of the gods alone (Lagrahge, 83 sq., 97). But it may be 
questioned whether the primary meaning of ba‘al is ‘‘ inhabitant” or 
‘* owner ”’ (above, p.95n.end). The idea of domination, at all events, 
does not necessarily involve a servile relationship (p. 94, cf. 109), 
although ideas of ownership and overrule (e.g. over a wife, Kinship, 92) 
are found, especially in the more complex society of Babylonia. On 
the other hand, property-rights come by ‘“‘ quickening”? a place 
(p. 95 sqg.)—the Baal “‘ donne la fécondité du sol” (Lagrange, 98), or a 
man builds on the soil or cultivates it (p. 143). In other words, he 
makes things naturally effective. Already Toy (on Prov. ili. 27) has 


p:112n.). “ Waters of B.” occurs from the Nineteenth Dynasty onwards (Gress- 
mann, op. cit. Nos. 44-47). 
1 Gressmann, op. cit. 213. Shamash is also “in” (ina, ishtu) heaven. 


534 THE BAAL AS THE CAUSE 


suggested that ba‘al signifies one who employs or controls a thing ; 
and the compound expressions ba‘al of tongue, wisdom, city, etc., 
suggest further that the primary idea of ba‘al is that of a productive, 
effective agent, and, on this account, a possessor of rights (cf. p. 637). 
The Baal “‘ of”? a place may be supposed to “‘ own” it, but he 
is properly the god to be invoked when one is in his locality or requires 
his help. Gods are not merely to be feared or served, they are also 
to be used ; and the conception of gods as effective causes is so common 
elsewhere, and so self-evident, as to lead us to expect it among the 
Semites. Gods are frequently causes of prosperity in general, or of 
particular activities, as when the earth becomes sterile and fertility 
ceases when Tammuz and Ishtar are in the Lower World. There 
are many nuances: the Greek demon causes a man to be what he 
is, and the Latin genius makes for the efficiency of people and the 
stability of things.. Among primitive peoples there are “ species 
deities,” archetypes, creators and sustainers of the various species 
of animals (in one case the guardian is an “‘ elder brother’) and of 
various objects of nature.? So, too, there are presiding “ angels,” 
tutelary and other similar deities, and oroixyeia (see H.Bi. art. 
‘* Elements ’’). Throughout, the fundamental notion seems to be 
that of the power which makes things effective, causes them to act 
as they should, and preserves their nature. Accordingly, the Baal- 
Berith, as W. R. S. says, “‘ presides over covenants” (p. 95 n.), 
though it is significant that this function is elsewhere ascribed to 
specific gods (the Aryan Varuna and Mitra),’ or there is an immanent 
process, when, by means of vague imprecations, covenants are safe- 
guarded by unspecified powers or some implied mechanism (p. 555). 
But kings are also effective powers. When Rameses 1., hailed 
by his courtiers as ‘‘ lord of heaven, lord of earth, Re,” is also “‘ lord 
of food, plentiful in grain,” 7.e. he is a veritable food-baal (cf. p. 537). 
The king is the visible god and the source of the land’s fruitfulness 
(Breasted, Hg. Records, iii. § 265); the ‘‘ magical’? powers of chiefs 
and kings are well known (see Frazer, GB. i. ch. vi.). Itis, to be sure, 
difficult to say that the Pharaoh or the god is an actual immanent 
principle, although in the Pyramid Texts the dead king is a veritable 
cosmic principle: he becomes “‘ the outflow of the rain,” while in 
the Twelfth Dynasty a dead king is said to rejoin the Sun and his 
‘‘ divine limbs”’ mingle with him that begat him.4 The evidence is 


1 Nilsson, 283 sq.; cf. W. Warde Fowler, Roman Ideas of Deity, 17 sqq. 

2 Tylor, Primitive Culture4, ii. 244 (cf. the “ patrons” or “‘ patterns’). 

3 Meillet, Journ. Asiat. 1907, ii. 143; Bertholet-Lehmann, Lehrbuch d. Rel. 
gesch., ii. 21. 

4 Breasted, Development of Eg. Thought, 125; Eg. Rec. i. § 491, il. § 592. 


EFFICIENT CAUSES 535 


more intelligible when the god or the divine king exercises control 
from outside. So, Yahweh gives command (Gen. i.) and he “‘ calls” 
for the corn (p. 518); and the Aryan Varuna is an ethical god, the 
guardian of an immanent principle of cosmic and social order (p. 657). 
Among primitive peoples the ability to get, control, or multiply the 
vital things of life (food, rain, etc.) is often associated with special 
individuals whose powers are either general or specialized. In 
typical cases an essential substantial relationship is believed to subsist 
between the controller and the controlled. The most remarkable are 
the ceremonies recorded by Spencer and Gillen among certain totem- 
clans of Central Australia. They are of extreme interest (1) for 
their contribution to our knowledge of primitive social-religious cults 
and totemism in particular, and (2) for the illustration they 
afford of W. R. 8.’s fundamental theory of the totem communion- 
sacrifice.1 Here, (a) each of the clans is of the same essence or 
substance as its totem-species, and the difference between the clans- 
men and the species (emu, kangaroo, etc.) is ignored so far as the 
cult is concerned—a criterion of totemism ; and (b) each clan, through 
its elders, is supposed, under appropriate conditions, to multiply or 
otherwise exercise control over its totem.2 Thus it appears that 
where the idea prevails of some effective control there is between con- 
troller and controlled a unique relationship which, in the most striking 
examples, is a virtual or an actual identity. Hence the Semitic Baal- 
conception can hardly be isolated from the related ideas elsewhere. 
Semitic Baalism is at the agricultural stage (pp. 113, 244). But 
this is not the earliest stage of society: the very notion of sacred 
places is earlier than the beginning of settled life (p. 118). For the 
primitive conceptions we are directed to the simpler Arab life (p. 101), 
or, with Lagrange (p. 98), to the cuneiform inscriptions of thousands 
of years earlier—the difference in method is highly typical. In any 
case, the Arab data are complex. Still, a distinction is drawn between 


1Totemism has been defined as the cult of a social group, especially an 
exogamous one, which stands to a species of animal or plant (generally edible), 
or to an object or class of objects, in an intimate relationship ; the totem is treated 
as a cognate to be respected, and not to be eaten or used, or at least only under 
certain restrictions. See W. H. Rivers, The History of Melanesian Society, i. 75 
(Cambridge, 1914). 

2 In order that the ceremonies may be successful, the clansmen, who usually 
refrain from eating their own totem, must on this occasion eat a little, Frazer 
(Tot. Ex. iv. 231) observes that the ceremony is utilitarian and magical, and the 
animal in no sense divine, a criticism which of course turns upon his definition 
of religion and magic. (The researches of Spencer and Gillen have been in some 
respects modified by those of Strehlow; but the main facts, so far as W. R. S.’s 
arguments are involved, are not affected.) See below, p. 586. 


536 THE BAALS LAND 


** Baal’s land” and the “‘ land” belonging to Athtar (i.e. Astarte 
or Ishtar, p. 99 n. 2), and it is possible to regard the land that bears 
fruit under the influence of the fertilizing power of Baal as his wife 
(Prophets, 172, 411). If so, it is easy to see that, under the marriage 
symbolism (the importance of which is indicated by W. R.. S. l.c.), 
different views could prevail touching the respective functions of the 
male element and of the female element, and also of the power behind 
or over these (see p. 513).1 With Lagrange (97 sq.) it is unnecessary 
to endeavour to restrict the nuances and developments of the idea 
of the Baal, although it is difficult to agree with him that ‘‘ idée de 
propriété et par suite de domination rend compte de toutes ses 
nuances.” For the most primitive or fundamental conception we 
seek some more pregnant and effective idea, in harmony with the 
practical character of early religion. 

P. 99 n.—On the terms ba‘l, ghail, see the Kitab al-kharaj of Yahya 
ibn Adam (ed. Juynboll, 1896), 80 sq.—A. A. B. 

P. 100 n.—See CIS. iv. 47; Barton, Semitic Origins, 86 sq., 127, 128 
n. 1; and, on water rights in South Arabia, Rhodokanakis, Siz. Ber. 
of the Vienna Academy, 185, No. 3 (1917), 86, 97, 108. 

P. 107. ApHaca.—See Lagrange, 129 n. 1, 159; Baudissin, Adonis, 
80, 363 n. 1; Frazer, GB. v. 259 (and his description of the place, 
28 sq.). On the local survival of cults associated with a female spirit 
or deity, see Rouvier, Bullet. Arch. 1900, p. 170; Curtiss, Prim. Sem. 
Rel. 153 sq. (a sacred fig-tree growing out of the ruins is known as “ our 
lady Venus”). Paton (Annual of the American School of Oriental 
Research in Jerusalem, 1920, i. 56) refers to a fig-tree, a ruined shrine, 
and aspring, the abode of Sa‘idat Afka, of whom is told a story evidently 
derived from the myth of Astarte and Adonis. In such cases, however, 
it is difficult to decide whether the story goes back to pre-Christian 
times, or has been from time to time resurrected by learned monks 
or travellers, and in this way impressed upon the peasantry. 

P. 108 and n. 3. THz HusBanp or THE Lanp.—As W. R. 8. shows 
in more detail elsewhere (Prophets, 172 sq., 410 sq.), land and people 
form a natural unity, and it is the same whether the god marries the 
land and makes it productive or marries the stock of the nation.? 


1 Dusares, who is a North Arabian Baal (Wellhausen, 51), is “* he of the shara,” 
a term given to districts which, as it seems, were moist and luxuriant (cf. Néldeke, 
ERE. i. 663). Although a connexion between the word and Ishtar is excluded 
by the guttural, the goddess does seem to represent the fertility of nature and 
to be the goddess of the fertilizing moisture of the soil (Baudissin, 21, 27; cf. 
ZDMG. Ivii. 824). 


2 See on Mother-Earth (p. 518). Among the Yuin of Australia the notion is 


that a man owns the district where he was born (Hobhouse, Wheeler, and Ginsberg, 
248 sq.). 


ff 
a 
j 
; 
a 


THE HUSBAND OF THE LAND 537 


4 


The woman as land or field is a familiar notion; cf. Hartland, Primitive 
Paternity, i. 309 sq. (Vedic Law). In the Amarna Letters, Rib-Addi, 
lamenting the famine, says, ‘‘ My field is like a woman without a 
husband”’; parallels to this are found in Old Egyptian, in the Tal- 
mudic “‘ virgin soil” (ndbyna yprap), and T'aanith 6b, “‘ rain is the ba‘al 
of the earth.” 1 Rulers of a city are frequently compared to a bride- 
groom or husband.” Rameses u. is called ‘“‘ husband of Egypt,” 
rescuing her from every enemy (Breasted, Hg. Rec. iii. § 490); and 
Rameses Im. is an “‘ abundant Nile” (iv. § 92), and “‘ the great Nile, 
the great harvest-goddess of Egypt’”’ (iv. p. 7 note d). Such kings 
both claim to be, and are recognized as, the cause of the land’s material 
prosperity. Rameses 11. is hailed as “ lord of food, plentiful in grain, 
in whose footsteps is the harvest goddess.” His word brings rain upon 
the mountains, for he is the incarnation of the god Re (iii. §§ 265, 268) ; 
and the god Ptah gives him “a great Nile,’ good harvests, and all 
prosperity (iii. §§ 404, 409). Similarly Amenemhet I. says, “ I culti- 
vated grain and loved the harvest-god ”’ (i. § 483). 

In general, the earth needs fertilization, and this comes through 
the god or a nature-god, or his representative. The procedure is 
sometimes most realistic. Often fertility depends upon the conduct 
of the representative individual: the evil influence of a bad ruler 
upon nature and the agricultural prosperity of his country is familiar 
in ancient religion. But the fundamental belief in this interrelation 
or identity of man and nature is otherwise expressed when, at a more 
democratic stage, Israel’s material prosperity depends upon the be- 
haviour of the people, or when, at a more priestly stage, it depends upon 
the cultus, and upon the strict observance of the necessary religious 
rites. Social order and the order of nature are in theory one, but in 
practice special members of society are supposed to possess unique 
powers over nature, or by their condugt can exercise direct or indirect 
influence upon all that makes for human welfare.t The “‘ husband ”’ of 


1 Knudtzon, No. 74, rec. 7 sq.; Alte Orient, viii. 30; Sarowsky, ZATW. xxxii. 
308 sqq., XXxiil. 81 sq. 

2Stiibe refers to Schack, Poesie wu. Kunst d. Araber in Spanien u. Sicilien, 
ii. 117 sqqg.; G. Jacob, Altarab. Parellelen z. A.T. 16. 

3 The union of sky-god and earth-mother can be traced through the Medi- 
terranean area: so A. B, Cook, Zeus, i. T79 sq., ii. 677. In the isles of Leti, etc., 
Mr. Sun comes down once a year to fertilize the earth (Frazer, GB. 11.99); and the 
Pueblo Indians entreat the Sun Father to embrace the Earth Mother (Frazer, Tot. 
Ex. ii. 237). Farnell (vol. Rel. 194) cites an early English prayer: ‘‘ Hail be thou, 
Earth, Mother of Men; wax fertile in the embrace of God, fulfilled with fruit for 
the use of men ” (Grein, Bibl. d. angel-sachs. Poesie, ed. Wiilcker, i. 316). 

4 For the interconnexion of man and “ nature ” (a conception which is by no 
means a primitive one), see also Aptowitzer, GW J. Ixiv. 227, 305, Ixv. 71, 164. 


538 JINN AND DEMONS 


the land or people is therefore a particular form of various interrelated 
ideas of the cause of growth and fertility. 

P. 119 sqq. (cf. 441 sqq.). THE JINN AND TotEemism.1—In contrast 
to the more or less systematized cults of settled communities are 
the miscellaneous beliefs in supernatural beings of vague individuality 
and, in particular, animal in form. They thus find analogies in some 
of the characteristics of totemism, and the question is raised, Are the 
jinn potential totems ? It is to be noticed that (1) W. R.8.’s evidence 
for jinn and demons is not peculiar to any part of the Semitic field, 
to any period of its history, or to the Semitic area itself.? (2) No 
sharp dividing line can be drawn between jinn and other more or less 
related beings: the jinn of both ancient and modern times often recall 
the fairies, trolls, and goblins of western lands (e.g. they will help the 
poor), and it may even be questioned whether such beings should be 
called jinn (Lang, JRAJI. xxx. No. 17). (3) There is no great gulf 
between the jinn and wild beasts on the one hand (p. 121 n. 1) and 
human beings on the other—the failure to distinguish clearly between 
human and animal is common among primitive peoples.® 

The jinn, like ‘‘ demons” and their kind, serve conveniently to 
explain whatever is not due to “‘ natural ’’ causes, or that has a super- 
natural origin, and cannot be associated with any of the known gods 
or spirits. The jinn are by reputation harmful and Satanic ; they are 
hostile, whereas there are other animal beings which will give omens, 
assist in ordeals, and be generally helpful. Unusual phenomena will 
be ascribed either to jinn or demons, or to more friendly beings, 
according to the particular circumstances of each; so that sometimes 
the native is at a loss to whose charge to lay some more ambig- 
uous occurrence. Of the springs in Palestine inhabited by super- 
natural beings, some are the centre of cults; the water has creative 
properties, and the “ saint”’ is accepted as orthodox and Islamic. 
But sometimes there is a jinn who takes the shape of an animal, a 


1On the jinn, see also Wellhausen, 208 sgqg.; Goldziher, Abhand. i. 107 sqq., 
201; Jaussen, 318 sqqg.; Néldeke, ERE. i. 669 sg.; Geyer in the WNoéldeke- 
Festschrift, i. 66 sqg.; Einszler, ZDPV. x. 160 sgg. For criticisms of W. R. S., 
see Westermarck, JRAT. 1899, pp. 252-68 (the nature of the Arab jinn as illustrated 
by the present beliefs of the people of Morocco), now superseded by his Ritual 
and Belief in Morocco, i. 262-413, 

2 For Assyrian parallels, see R. Campbell Thompson, Semitic Magic, 57 sq. 

3 To the Gilyak of Alaska every animal is as much a man as a Gilyak, and perhaps 
greater and wiser (G.B. viii. 206). Australians see no difficulty in drawing an emu 
ora kangaroo with a shield (R. H. Matthews, Queensland Geog. Journal, xvi.[1900-1] 


p. 81, cf. xiv. 10 sg.; ef. also Frazer, Tot. Ex. i. 131 sq. and 119). Jastrow, Bab. 


Ass. Birth Omens (Giessen, 1914, p. 70 sq.) deals with the birth of monsters and 
other data which would foster ideas of the identity of human and animal nature. 


THE JINN, DEMONS AND TOTEMS 539 


monster, or a negro; he may injure people, and must be placated, 
driven off by prayers (J POS. iv. 64). Again, there are springs which 
have no cult, but are the abode of vague beings varying according to 
the particular traditions that encircle each. 

The relation between the jinn and the “‘ god” resembles that 
between the daivwy and the Oeds at another cultural stage. The 
demon is essentially undefined and has no real individuality, it is 
the suprasensual explanation of phenomena which a man is unable to 
explain from his ordinary experience; whereas a ‘“‘ god’ is developed 
by religious need, and, through the cult, into a characteristic in- 
dividuality.1_ Accordingly, the terms jinn, demon, demon, god, etc., 
are properly used to denote different sorts of powers, agencies, etc., 
the “ god” being distinguished by his having a personality and a 
relative permanence, and by being the centre of a cult and of a system 
of ideas (cf. Meyer, Gesch. Alt. i. § 50 sq.). Of course, care must be 
taken not to draw the line too rigorously, ignoring transitional forms : 
the Babylonian ‘‘ demons” appear to be more systematized figures 
than the jinn, there are well-understood relations between them and 
men, whereas the jinn is rather a class-god or species. The history of 
all these beings is the history of beliefs, ideas, etc. In this way, “‘ gods ”’ 
become degraded into ‘“‘ demons.’ ? But the reverse development 
cannot, on psychological grounds, be so easily followed, and W. R. 8. 
is careful to speak only of the development of friendly ‘‘ demoniac 
beings ”’ (p. 443). 

It is necessary to distinguish, where possible, between totemic 
features, and those which are at most totemistic, and those which can 
only be called theriomorphic. The striking local animal cults of 
Egypt in the period of her decline hardly represent the “ purely 
totemic ” stage (p. 226 ; cf. p. 578). In West African Secret Societies 
the ‘‘ Human Leopards” or ““ Human Lions” periodically act as 
though they were these animals. In Nigeria Mohammedan families 
have each a sacred animal (camel, goat, etc.) known as the “ head ”’ 
or the “‘ source’”’ of the house; it is never eaten, and is supposed to 
contain the spirits of the forefathers and to have witnessed the founda- 
tions of the house.* And this is in the midst of Islam! But what 
forms actual totemism took among ancient and rudimentary peoples 
it is impossible to guess ; and the theory of totemism and its relation 


1 Cf. Nilsson, 164 sqg. All da/poves are Osio1, but very few are promoted to the 
rank of 6:04; see Lightfoot’s note on Col. ii. 9. 

2 P, 120; cf. Goldziher, Abhand. i. 113 sq. (Cozah, etc.); ZA. viii. 333. Cf. the 
Ishtars as female idols in Mandan (Lidzbarski, Ephem. i. 101 and n. 12) and the 
Reshaphim as demons in later Hebrew (Bacher, REJ. xxviii. 151). 

3C. K. Meek, Northern Tribes of Nigeria, i. 174 (Oxford, 1925). 


540 ANIMAL AND HUMAN GODS 


to religion is really a methodological one. To some extent all animal 
symbolism and imagery is a refuge from anthropomorphism when 
ordinary human imagery is inadequate; and Farnell, in some im- 
portant pages, comments on the “ unstable anthropomorphism ” of 
Babylon and Assyria.1 The problem of totemism is bound up with 
that of anthropomorphism, in that the animal imagery, etc., is either 
a reaction against the latter, or represents a stage prior to anthropo- 
morphism itself. Naturally, animal cults cannot be derived from trees, 
springs, and stones, which, when regarded as sacred, are often thought 
of more or less along anthropomorphic lines. On the other hand, 
animals, by reason of their bodily and other characteristics (strength, 
cunning, etc.), are far more impressive, and have much more to contri- 
bute to man’s growing knowledge of himself. In totemism there are 
rudimentary forms of these elements which recur in a more developed 
form where there are anthropomorphic deities ; ? and even when there 
are ‘* All-Fathers”’ or ‘‘ Supreme Gods” in rudimentary areas, these 
are often as little an integral part of the social cult as they are in more 
advanced societies (p. 529 s7.). Again, not only are there sometimes 
tendencies to regard the totem as an at least semi-divine being, but 
‘* individual totems,” “‘ spirit guardians,” and “ naguals ” are on the 
road to become personal gods.? Hence the questions arise, (a) Into 
what does totemism develop ? and (b) Is anthropomorphism primary, 
or, if not, what sort of cult (whether it deserves to be called “ religious ”’ 
or not) preceded it ? 

W. R. S. lays the strongest emphasis upon the necessity of over- 
coming fear and terror of the unknown (p. 122); ideas of friendliness, 
relationship, and kinship necessarily characterize the earliest and most 
primitive types of religious cult (p. 137). The jinn are essentially 
unfriendly, but they illustrate some typical varieties of theriomorphism. 
On the other hand, friendly demoniacal beings, theriomorphic or other, 
capable of becoming “ gods,” can hardly be called jinn. The jinn, 
like the totem, are a “species”; they illustrate the material of which 
totemism is made, and in this sense it can be said that if they had human 
kinsfolk they would be “ potential totems” (cf. p. 130). The elements 
which constitute totemism are, taken separately, not strange to the 
Semites;4 but this fact does not prove that all the Semitic peoples 

1 Greece and Babylon, 14 sq., 54 sqq.; cf. Attributes of God, 22 sqq. 

2 Cf. S. A. Cook, ERE. “ Religion,” § 17 sq. 

3 Frazer, Tot. Ex. ii. 18 sq.; cf. 151, and i. 81 sq., also ii. 139 sqg., 166, iv. 30 sq. 
The Wollunqua snake-totem of the Warramunga “ seems to be a totem on the high 
road to become a god” (ib. i. 145). For Frazer’s evidence for the worship of 
totems, see the Introduction, above, p. xli. 


4 For instance, in the district of Dan in Palestine the late Lord Kitchener found 
the tomb of a dog which had become transformed into a holy place under the 


SURVIVALS OF TOTEMISM 541 


passed through that stage of animal cults which we call totemic. 
W. R. 8.’s careful sentences on p. 125 (italicized in this edition) speak 
not of an actual evolution, say from A to B, but of ideas and usages in 
B which also find a more rudimentary expression in A. The differ- 
ence is essential. He points out that primitive religious institutions 
are not to be explained by conceptions belonging to a more advanced 
stage beyond the “‘ totem stage of thought” (p. 445, 1. 11), because 
new gods, sanctuaries, cults, etc., can spring up at a later and post- 
totemic stage (p. 138). Of this earlier postulated totemic stage, there 
can only be survivals ; but the postulate accounts for the triangular 
relationship between gods, men, and animals of which there are so 
many miscellaneous examples (p. 287 sq.).1_ It is true that W. R. S. 
is thought to have exaggerated the significance of totemism, but it 
is difficult, if not impossible, to point to any other theory which affords 
a better explanation of those religious data with which he is concerned. 

P. 121 n. 1.—The association between demons and wild beasts 
may be illustrated by a verse of Hatim at-Ta’i (ed. Schulthess, 1897), 
Banu-l-jinni lam yutbakh bicidrin jaztruha (p. 27, line 18, of the Arabic 
text; p. 46 of the translation), “ the sons of the Jinn whose victim is 
not cooked in a cauldron.’’ This conception of the jinn as eaters of raw 
flesh agrees remarkably with what Spencer and Gillen say of the 
Australian beliefs: ‘‘ The spirits kill and eat all manner of game, but 
always uncooked, for they are not supposed to have any fires ’’ (Native 
Tribes of Central Australia, 516).—A. A. B. 

P. 135. AstraL ReELicion.2—Although there is evidence for a 
widespread interest in the heavenly bodies—and the Pleiades in 
particular were often carefully observed by primitive peoples (G.B. 
vii. 308 sqq.)—astral cults have not that prevalence or antiquity 
name of the Sheikh Merzuk (PEF. Qy. St. 1877, p. 171). Men named “ dog” and 
*‘ whelp ” are connected with the story of a shrine at Ma‘alul, near Nazareth 
(Tyrwhitt Drake, 7b. 1873, p. 58). In Syria and Egypt every one has a double, 
often in the form of an animal (Seligman, Ridgeway Presentation Volume, 138 sq.). 
For saints in animal form, see J POS. vii. 12 sq. 

1 Similarly, F. B. Jevons, Introd. to the History of Rel. 127, speaks of the disjecta 
membra of totemism among Semites and Aryans. According to Meek (op. cit. ii. 
186), the Nigerian tribes whose titles mean simply “‘ Men” may be asserting that 
they have passed beyond those who are called Lions, Frogs, Buffaloes, etc. It is 
also possible that the familiar Cretan and other old Oriental representations of 
the subjugation of beasts (cf. Nilsson, 20) may refer to that consciousness of the 
difference between man and beast which also marks the Babylonian story of Engidu 
(CAH. iii. 228). 

2 See Kinship, 255 sq. Astral cults among the Arabs have been rather under- 
estimated (e.g. by Wellhausen, Heid. 175, 217; cf. 2nd ed. 211), see G. Jacob, Bed. 
Leben?, 158. For the data, see Noldeke, ERE. i. 660, and in general G, F. Moore, 
E.Bi. “ Nature Worship,” § 5. 


542 ASTRAL CULTS 


sometimes ascribed to them. The relative prominence of cults of the 
heavenly bodies in religion and mythology “ differs widely among 
peoples upon the same plane of culture and even of the same stock ; 
they had a different significance to the settled population of Arabia 
from that which they had for the Arab nomad (in South Arabia the 
worship of the sun and moon is strikingly prevalent), and besides this 
economic reason there are doubtless historical causes for the diversity 
which are in great part concealed from us” (Moore). The indications 
of astral cults among the Western Semites certainly prove more 
numerous than was thought; but the references in the O.T. to the cults 
of the later Assyrian period stand in contrast to the scantiness in the 
literature referring to earlier periods, which, however, may come from 
late though simpler circles. 

In Babylonia the keen observation of the stars was bound up with 
the conviction that the will of the gods was reflected in them and could 
be discovered ; and an elaborate system of astrology arose, based on 
the belief that occurrences in the heavens and occurrences on earth 
were ruled by the same laws—that is, that heaven and earth were part 
of one harmonious system. To adopt a modern formula, “* heaven and 
earth are each the image or reflexion of the other” (Himmelsbild= 
Weltbild).2 A modern theory also urges that numerous motifs of 
astral religion permeated ancient tradition.* But in general, when 
astral, mythical, and legendary motifs are supposed to occur in the 
stories of personages or events, it is obvious (1) that their presence 
does not prove that we have myth or legend, and (2) that, even in 
the latter, normal human traits could naturally be utilized, especially 
when stories of the heavenly bodies were concerned. The “ anthropo- 
morphic”’ treatment of things celestial is based upon terrestrial 
experience ; the remote and the supersensuous (whether divine beings 
or planets regarded as divine) are spoken of in terms of the near and 
the known. 

What is really important here is the emotional effect of myth and 
legend—of all that is supersensuous, idealizing, sublime, or artistic. 
It is in this respect that the myth or legend, with its peculiar treatment 
of nature or history, exercises so powerful an influence, and a ““ New 

1 Seals and other archzeological data in Palestine point to a certain prevalence 
of astral ideas. See also G. B. Gray, Sacrifice, 297 sq. (lunar influence on the feasts), 
148-178 (the later ideas of the sacrificial service in heaven). 

2 See especially Alfred Jeremias, The O.T. in the Light of the Ancient East (2 vols., 
1911); Handbuch der Altorient. Geisteskultur (Leipzig, 1913); and for criticisms, 
Wardle, Israel and Babylon, ch. xii. 

8 The four wives of Jacob are the four phases of the moon; Abraham and Lot 


are Dioscuri and must separate; like Jacob and Esau, they are also respectively 
lunar and solar characters. 


eS Pe ee ae rT 


RIGHT OF ASYLUM 543 


Jerusalem ’’ appeals otherwise than does the Old.!_ The characteristic 
colouring which makes such tradition and literature effective stands 
in contrast to the secondary euhemerizing, rationalizing, and other 
processes which wash it out. Similarly, there is a characteristic 
tendency to de-divinize and de-spiritualize (p. 546). Both are typi- 
cally secondary stages, although it is obvious that the material which 
receives the emotional, spiritual, or religious colouring had already 
undergone vicissitudes which in most cases cannot be recovered or 
reconstructed. It is not to be supposed that the primary stages are 
absolutely so; but, as in W. R. S.’s theory of the “ communion ”’ 
origin of sacrifice, it is the beginning of a fresh development, and not 
some absolute stage in the evolution of religion which we look for 
(cf. p. 499 and note 1). 

P. 145 n. 1.—See Floyer, Journ. Royal Asiatic Society, 1892, p. 813. 
The clause cited from Bekri reads “‘ and (the tribe of) Thacif have most 
right to Wajj.”—A. A. B. 

P. 148. Riaut or AsyLum.—See Quatremére, “‘ Les Asyles chez 
les Arabes,” Mem. Acad. Inscr. xv. (1845), 307 sqq.3; Goldziher, Muh. 
Stud. i. 236 sqq.; Jacob, Altarab. Parallelen z. A.T., 12; Wellhausen, 
184; Landberg, Arabica, ii. 1781; Westermarck, Origin and Devel. 
of Moral Ideas, ii. 628 sqq.; HRE. ii. 161 sqqg.; and Frazer, Tot. Ex. 
i. 96 sqq (who refers to A. Hellwig’s monographs on the subject, Berlin, 
1903, Stuttgart, 1906), iv. 267 sqg., and id. FOT. iii. 19 sg. (on Ps. 
Ixxxiv. 3). See next note. 

P. 150 and n. 2. Sacrep ArEas.—The South Arabian ddat-hmy, 
‘“‘ she of the sacred enclosure”? (Hommel; see Lagrange, 184 n. 3), 
is otherwise rendered “‘ she of the burning heat ”’ (Hoyer, see Nielsen, 
251 n.). With the “ wall” as the watcher, cf: the Babylonian custom 
of giving significant names to gates, walls, etc., and the lustrations 
of the citadel in Iguvium, with prayer and sacrifice at each gate 
(Warde Fowler).” 

As regards the protection of sacred animals (cf. pp. 142 n., 160), the 
Egyptian, in the so-called ‘“‘ Negative Confession,” will testify that 
he has not taken away the birds or fishes of the gods; and in the 
Saite age a man declares, “‘I gave food to the ibis, the hawk, the cat, 
and the jackal ’”’ (Breasted, Anc. Rec. i. 126, note c). Even in Central 
Australia there are, besides the sacred totem species, spots (generally 
caves) containing the objects of cult; everything there is sacred—no 


1 Cf. Cook in Peake’s People and the Book, 60 sq. 

2 See Kinship, 162, on the root h-m-y, and the ham as a term of relationship (the 
group which protects the woman against encroachment). From the root h-r-m 
are derived the S. Arab. non, orn, and the Nab. xnornn (sanctuary). See Cooke, 
220; Lagrange, 184; G. R. Driver, Journ. of Theol. Stud. xxv. 294, 296. 


544 SACRED AREAS 


plant may be pulled, no branch broken, even the animals that stray 
thither are safe (Frazer, Tiot. Hx. i. 96). The sanctity of the saint’s 
tomb in Palestine is well known; objects can be deposited there 
temporarily, and a man of authority was once beaten to death for 
cutting down a thorn-tree in the welds ground.! As a general rule, 
the weli is expected to protect his own property (cf. the story, JPOS. 
v. 174), or the sanctity of the place is vindicated by his people, or 
there is, as it were, an inherent protecting force. Further, the 
sanctity of a place sanctifies everything; or something therein is 
especially sacred, so that either there seems to be a diffused sanctity, 
and everything participates in the sacred quality (cf. p. 156), or the 
sacred power is or can be localized, and any sound or movement in the 
area may be interpreted as a sign of the presence or response of the 
power invoked. Moreover, objects which are in the sacred area can 
retain their sanctity when taken outside. Conversely, the sacred 
object can sanctify a place, and it is presumably a survival of the 
sacred character of the horse in Persia when a stable is an 
asylum.? 

P. 152 n. 2.—See now, GB. iii., and the articles on taboo in Hncy. 
Brit. (N. W. Thomas) and ERE. (Marett). 

P. 155 n. 1.—Cf. also Sir G. A. Smith, #.Bz. “‘ Hermon,” §2; and 
E. Hommel, JSOR. x. 34 sqq. 

P. 156 n. 1.—See Sir G. A. Smith, H.Bz. ‘‘ Carmel,” § 4 sq. On 
mountain cults in general, see H.B1. col. 2065, § 2 and n. 3. A large 
proportion of the shrines in Palestine are on hilltops (Canaan, J POS. iv. 
4—7), and in time of drought people ascend the roof of a shrine in order 
to approach nearer to the deity (id. vi. 144 n. 1); cf. above, p. 230 n. 4. 

P. 157 and note. ANCESTOR CuLtTs.—This subject, over which 
W. R. 8. passes rapidly, is bound up with (a) the deification of men 
who are not necessarily ancestors, or who may be only reputed an- 
cestors, (b) the tendency to think of a supernatural being as a parent 
or ancestor (cf. p. 509 sq.), and (c) the old and recurrent theory that all 
deities were originally deified men. Euhemerist tendencies come to 
the fore when there is little difference between gods and pre-eminent 
men (cf. p. 43), when such men are treated as semi-divine (cf. Lagrange, 
463 sq.), when respect, veneration, or love are felt for ancestors, or 


1 Canaan, JPOS. v. 175. The Turks are supposed to have lost the battle of 
Gaza in the Great. War because they cut down a sacred tree and destroyed a certain 
shrine (20.). 

2 Folk-lore, xii. 269, The horse was worshipped in Bahrein—a Persian cult ? 
See Kinship, 243. It may perhaps be associated with the cult of Semiramis (see 
GB. ix. 407 n. 2). The horse was also sacred in the Vedic religion ; see E. Meyer, 
GA. 1. $580; -Loisy, Sacrifice, 397 sq.; Camb. Hist. of India, i. 119 sq. 


A ee 


ee. 


ae 


ANCESTOR CULTS 545 


when deities and ancestors are ceremonially represented by living 
representatives (see GB. ix. 385 sq.), or perhaps even as a reaction 
against theriomorphic ideas of divinity. In the case of the actual 
deification or divinization of great figures, especially kings (cf. pp. 
44 sq., 66), a distinction may be drawn between the rise of the cult 
after their death, and the practice of some sort of cult during their 
lifetime ; psychological differences between meditation upon the 
dead in a supersensuous realm and upon the living should not be 
overlooked. Further, although there is typically the closest and 
most intimate relationship between a sacred man and his deity, as 
e.g. in Egypt where the Pharaoh is the god incarnate and his ‘‘ son ”’ 
in the flesh, there is also typically a recognized difference between 
the man and his god, even though it is apt at times to be obscured. 
Already in the early Pyramid Texts the Pharaoh is man, son of the 
god, and a god; and it is probable that the Divine Kingship through- 
out Egypt and South-West Asia involved a similar coexistence of most 
intimate relationship by the side of an essential difference.1 The 
denunciation of the spiritual arrogance of Nebuchadrezzar (Dan. iv. 
30 sqq.; cf. Judith iii. 8, vi. 2-4) and of the king of Tyre (Ezek. xxviii. 
11 sqq.), and the “ Fall of Lucifer’ (Isa. xiv. 12), testify both to the 
persistence of the idea of the man-god and to the characteristic atti- 
tude of those teachers of Israel who were jealous of the sovereignty 
and supremacy of Yahweh. Such an attitude in Israel would be no 
less opposed to the deification of their own kings and to the worship 
of ancestors. 

In the North Syrian inscription of Panammu, inscribed upon a 
colossal statue of the god Hadad, the dead king requests that his 
successor shall make mention of the name of the god and of himself, 
and shall pray that the soul of Panammu may eat and drink with the 
god (Cooke, No. 61; Lagrange, 492 sqq.). That Panammu could 
mediate on behalf of the living is not hinted ; and, speaking generally, 
it is constantly an open question (1) whether prayers and sacrifices 
are made to the god (in this case, to Hadad) on behalf of the dead, 
or in the hope that the grateful dead will use their good services on 
behalf of the living; or (2) whether they are intended directly for the 
dead, either as a token of love or piety, or because the dead are, in a 
sense, more accessible and intelligible than the great and remote gods. 
For, when the powerful deities are felt to be afar off, a past ruler, leader, 
or holy man, powerful, helpful, and kindly, will be a far more historical 


1 Thus, the reforming king Ikhnaton is the beloved son of the self-begotten 
Aton, who makes him like himself and hears what is in his heart; he assigns to 
him his own length of years, and begets him every morning (Breasted, Anc. Ree. 
ii. §§ 991, 1010, etc.). 


a) 


546 ANCESTORS AND WELIS 


figure, and a more vivid nucleus of the god-idea in popular imagination 
and speculation. 

In the vicissitudes of religion, divinization and de-divinization are 
typically alternating processes (see Toy, §§ 350 sqq.). The Babylonian 
god Tammuz appears in a list of primeval kings of Erech along with 
Gilgamesh the hero of the epic, and they rule for 100 and 126 years 
respectively (CAH. i.? 366 sq.). It is of course possible that an actual 
king Tammuz, becoming deified, was clothed in the characteristic 
garb of a vegetation god; but it is equally possible that a still earlier 
god had already in some circles become the victim of euhemerism. 
The stories of the patriarch Jacob are sometimes thought to be derived 
from a heroic figure of a de-divinized god, in which case there has been 
a certain rationalizing process, for which there are analogies. Other- 
wise, traits of a mythical and supernatural character have certainly 
attached themselves to an originally historical figure.1 The complexity 
of such inquiries as these can be illustrated from the modern cults of 
Palestinian saints and welis where (1) there are clans and families who 
claim to have sprung from one or other of these; (2) where the well- 
known ancestor of a living sheikh is made a saint (Jaussen, 305), or 
where in this or in other ways a new cult springs into being, ready 
made; and (3) where the identity of the saint or welt has clearly 
undergone change in the course of ages. As a general rule, specific 
tendencies (to divinize or to rationalize) can be more clearly appre- 
hended than the actual origin of the local beings who are, in a sense, 
the lineal descendants of the Baals—and in a few cases of the Astartes— 
of the past.? : 

The predominant part played by local, family, and somewhat 
private cults testifies to the imperious demand for readily accessible 
supernatural powers. Such cults are often made tolerably orthodox 
and are affiliated to the national religion; and although they may be 
repudiated, if not put down, by strict reforming movements (“‘ Deutero- 
nomic,” Wahhabite, etc.), they come to the front again—though not 
in all their earlier form—because of the psychological needs they 
serve. Even on general principles, the cult of sacred beings who were 
regarded as ancestors, and of ancestors who were gods or heroic beings, 
is only to be expected in ancient times and among the Semites. The 
evidence has no doubt been exaggerated ; hence perhaps Lagrange’s 


isa 1 E. Meyer now decides that Jacob was primarily a god; see Israeliten, 109 
(Luther), 282; Gesch. Alt. i. §§ 308, 343 sq. Rachel’s continued interest in her 
children, and the unexpected indifference of Abraham and Israel (Isa. Ixiii. 16), may 
point to an earlier and fuller cult of the great ancestral figures. 

2 Cf. the Anatolian dede, the heroized ancestor who to most is nameless (Ramsay, 
Expositor, Nov. 1906, p. 460. 


Sn 


THE GROUP ANCESTORS 547 


not unnecessary reaction (ch. ix.). To Vincent (Canaan, ch. iv., see 
288 sqq., 295), the archeological data suggest care for the dead, rather 
than a cult. But there was evidently a belief in their continued 
existence, and the denunciation of mourning customs by the Israelite 
reformers is highly significant. 

The modern custom of burying the dead in the vicinity of a sacred 
tomb or shrine is partly in order to preclude interference, and partly 
also to secure a blessing (J POS. iv. 7). Sacrifices are made at graves, 
and there are gatherings with distribution of food and prayers for the 
dead.! Of special interest are the annual assemblies at the synagogue 
of R. Meir near Tiberias and the burnings at Meiron at the tomb of 
R. Simeon ben Yochai.2 The desire to keep one’s name alive (e.g. by a 
monument, 2 Sam. xviii. 18) would also involve some ceremony (CAH. 
iii. 445). Throughout, we find the idea of the continuance of the in- 
dividual by himself, or as part of his group, or by virtue of his relation- 
ship with the god (see p. 555). Even Abraham and Aaron are gathered 
each to his “ people”? (‘am, Gen. xxv. 8; Num. xx. 24); and not 
only is ‘am also a divine name, but when the group itself bears a divine 
name (Gad, etc.) the one life which pervades the whole group is, in a 
sense, more explicitly divine than when its god stands apart, e.g. as a 
“father.” Theoretically, the union of the group and its sacred being 
is essentially of the closest ; the whole kindred conceives itself as having 
a single life in space and time (see above, p. 504 sq.). But in practice 
distinctions are made, and everywhere there are varying relations 
between the god, the group (as a whole), and special individuals. 
In Australian totemism the ancestors of the ‘ Alcheringa times ”’ 
are alike totem (animal or plant) and human (Tot. Hx. i. 188 sq.) ; 
ideas of human personality are undeveloped, and the visible totem- 
group and its ancestors are substantially one. With the growth of 
ideas of human nature, with increase of individuality, and especially 
with enhanced family or group sentiments there is a tendency to 
recognize supernatural beings of a more exclusive, more personal 
character, and ancestor cults easily arise. See pp. 591, 670. 

The tendencies to replace a remote god by a human one, to find the 
link with the supernatural in specific dead individuals, and to think 
of gods along anthropomorphic lines have had so powerful an influence 
upon the development of social-religious ideas that ancestor worship 
has frequently commended itself as an explanation of the origin of 
religion. But there is always the question (see Crawley, T'ree of Life, 
174), Why “‘ deify’’ a man, however much his character has won fear, 
respect, or love? There are elements in religion which can hardly be 


1 Doughty, i. 240; Canaan, JPOS. vi. 65 sq.; Jaussen, 313 sqq. 
2 Cf. Ewing, Life of J. E. H. Thomson, 146 sqq., 151, 


548 SACRED AND UNCLEAN 


derived from ancestor worship, or which are independent of anthropo- 
morphic forms (e.g. cults of trees, stones, springs) ; and whereas the 
broad developments in anthropomorphism have been towards more 
elevated ideas of human personality, in totemism—and even animals 
can be “‘ ancestors ’’—the development has been towards anthropo- 
morphism rather than away from it. The tendency to “ deify”’ lies 
behind both theriomorphism and anthropomorphism; and the ex- 
perience of a “‘ sacred ’’ person or thing is not to be confused with the 
way in which that experience has been formulated. See next note. 

P. 161 and Additional Note B. THz Sacrzep.'—Here property 
rights are secondary because (1) they are subordinated to the claims of a 
sacred power, e.g. when animals stray upon a sacred area (cf. p. 543 sq.) ; 
(2) a holy thing as such is not necessarily the god’s property, it may 
be a man’s private cult-object ; (3) even that which is the god’s pro- 
perty may be a public rather than a private possession (cf. p. 147); 
and (4), in general, all worshippers have access, subject to certain 
restrictions, to what is sacred. The sacred is “ restricted.’’ The 
‘“‘ holiness”? of the gods rather than their intolerance is their dis- 
tinctive mark; it is a specifically Semitic attribute (Cumont, ch. v. 
n. 47, after Clermont-Ganneau). Things are either sacred and holy 
or common and profane; they are also divided into either clean or 
unclean. The difference between the two classes of terms is very 
important (see p. 446). Sanctity or holiness is something intrinsic, 
inherent ; and the “‘ sacred ’’ and “‘ unclean ”’ agree in their mechanical, 
automatic, and physical character. A man carries the “ unclean” 
into the sanctuary, and can bring back the “ sacred’ into ordinary 
life (p. 453). Things become unwittingly “‘ sacred” or “‘ unclean ”’ ; 
and these states, induced by contagion, by physical means, etc., can 
be remedied physically (e.g. by washing). Certain acts set in motion, 
as it were, the ‘“‘ sacred’”’ and ‘“‘ unclean.’’2 Bloodshed is a sort of 
miasma, and in Athens homicides were tried in an unroofed court in 
order that the case might be conducted in a purer atmosphere.® 

There is, of course, an essential distinction between the holy and the 
unclean (p. 153 sg.), and the question arises whether this difference, 
which Lagrange (150 sq.) properly emphasizes, is to be taken back to 
the beginning, or whether both may be supposed to have sprung from 


1 Wellhausen, 168 sqg.; G. A. Simcox, H#.B2. art. “‘ Clean”; Lagrange, ch. iv. ; 
Séderblom and Whitehouse, HRE. art. “Holiness”; Williger, Hagios (Giessen, 
1922). 

2 It is as in a coal mine where fire-damp, when it comes in contact with a flanie, 
explodes and brings death to the careless and to the innocent alike; see R.H. 
Kennett (and others) in Harly Ideals of Righteousness, 10 (Edinburgh, 1910). 

8 Farnell, Evolution of Religion, 149. 


SANCTITY AND KINSHIP 549 


the taboos of primitive peoples (cf. above, p. 446 foot; and see p. 152). 
Fear and irrational taboos have always been prejudicial to progress, 
whereas restrictions due to respect or awe for friendly powers “‘ contain 
with them germinant principles of social progress and moral order ”’ 
(p. 154). Admitted that the distinction between the holy and the 
unclean “* marks a real advance above savagery ”’ (ib.), we must draw 
a line between (1) this distinction, which is vital for very development, 
and (2) the confusion of blind fear and reverence which occurs re- 
peatedly and precludes progress (p. 519 sq.). Hence it is simpler to 
start with a stage where religion, involving friendly relations (such as 
W. R. S. finds in totemism), can be recognized, than with some prior 
one where this distinction has not been made, even as it is simpler to 
start from a stage with both religion and its antithesis magic than from 
an assumed absolute priority of magic. 

The unity of gods and men within the group is a fundamental 
part of W. R. 8.’s argument. ‘ The principle of sanctity and that of 
kinship are identical ’’ (p. 289); ‘‘ holiness means kinship to the wor- 
shippers and their god”’ (p. 400). In other words, the consciousness of 
the reality of the supersensuous power was characteristically one that 
united man to it in a way that could be formulated only in terms of 
most intimate relationship. In mysticism there are the well-known 
experiences of (a) a loss of the self, which approaches (5) identity with 
the unseen power ; though the doctrine of an actual identity of the Self 
and the Other meets with condemnation at the hands of mystics 
themselves. Similarly, among rudimentary peoples there are rites of 
imitation of, and even of identification with, unseen powers, which are 
essentially only the more elemental and physical expression of experi- 
ences analogous to those in the spiritual and mystical religions at more 
advanced levels. Among rudimentary peoples these rites easily take 
forms and lead to consequences which must be regarded as contrary 
to the progressive development of religion; but ‘‘ aberrations” are 
by no means wanting also at the higher stages. Theoretically, the 
entire group of gods and worshippers should be holy—this is the ideal 
(Ex. xix. 6, Num. xvi. 3). But in the history of religion distinctions 
are made. Among rudimentary peoples lines are drawn (1) between 
the full members and women, uninitiated and slaves ; (2) between the 
special group in its ordinary, normal life and the ‘“sacred”’ state 
when certain ceremonies are being performed collectively and various 
taboos are in force.? 

There are ceremonies to confirm or to intensify the unity of gods 


6 


1 The transition from one state to another, or from the “normal” to the 
“* supernormal ” and back again, has been handled at length by Van Gennep, Les 
Rites de Passage (1909). 


550 SANCTITY AND MANA 


and men, and there are offences which destroy it. Holiness and 
(ceremonial) cleanness are incompatible with uncleanness; and although 
men act as though there were a sort of automatic, self-vindicating 
process (pp. 162, 425 1. 5), they must also act on its behalf (p. 163). 
Both ritual and ethical offences weaken the unity ; but the specifically 
ethical aspect of divine holiness, as taught by the Hebrew prophets, 
though it reshaped the earlier religion, was followed, even as it had 
been preceded, by a preponderating emphasis upon ceremonial holi- 
ness. Such a succession of stages—alternately ritual and ethical—is 
probably normal. Some types of uncleanness (e.g. sexual), though 
perfectly natural, are thought to stand in need of purificatory rites, 
and peoples or lands which do not conform to them are, on this account, 
“unclean.” 1 Although, theoretically, one’s own land is “‘ sacred”’ 
and the group participates in the sacred life (cf. p. 160), in practice there 
are definite holy places, or new centres of sacred power will manifest 
themselves (tree, spring, etc.). Life tends to be systematized into 
sacred places, times, and individuals (who, e.g., will assert the doctrine 
of divine proprietorship), and sacred states.2 But the readiness to 
experience what is sacred or holy is logically prior to the particular 
experience, which is at once shaped and interpreted according to the 
circumstances. 

Since W. R. 8. wrote, the subject has been considerably extended 
by the study of ideas of Mana. Among many peoples there is explicit 
recognition of some supersensuous cause of all phenomena that are 
striking, marvellous, abnormal, etc., or that are beyond man’s power, 
or that are impressive because of their significance and regularity. 
A power manifests itself in unusual forms of what is otherwise usual 
(special strength, cunning, productivity), or in natural phenomena 
essential to human welfare. Many specific terms have been collected 
from different parts of the world—the North American Orenda, Manitu, 
etc., the Oudah of the Pygmies, the Petara of the Sea Dyaks of Sara- 
wak, and so forth. Throughout, the reference is to some power, 
whether vague, or more precisely connected with a god or with powerful 
ancestors. If impersonal, it tends to become personal when venerated. 

1 An “ unclean ” land was a foreign one (p. 93), and Gentile women who did 
not perform the usual Jewish purificatory rites were ‘“‘ unclean ” themselves, and 


communicated the state to their husbands (Biichler, Jew. Quart. Rev. xvii. {1926}, 
67 sq., 79 sq.). 

2The importance of this (largely unconscious) systematization is especially 
emphasized by Durkheim, who illustrates it in the most rudimentary, though 
highly efficacious forms in Central Australian totemism. 

3 Marett, Threshold of Religion, 13, 120 sqq., and ERE. “‘Mana”; Durkheim, 


192 sqq.; Crawley, Idea of the Soul; Hartland, Ritual and Belief, 36-160; I. King, 
ch, vi. 


THE CONCEPT OF MANA 551 


It is the power that is manifested in men of outstanding personality, 
and it is as the power of the mighty dead that it is most readily ex- 
plained. Of the many terms with various nuances found among most 
widely severed peoples the Melanesian Mana is commonly adopted, 
but on the understanding that the particular Melanesian type of Mana 
is not the norm. It is properly a convenient term for co-ordinating 
great masses of related facts ancient and modern. 

The data of ‘‘ Mana” range between the vague and more inde- 
finite causes where, e.g., sacred stones have curative properties, though 
there is no tradition or explanation of their efficacy, and the more 
specific gods. A bull-roarer may be effective in a general way in 
promoting fertility; but elementary reasoning enters when female 
fertility is combined with that of the soil, or, e.g., the liver of a fierce 
animal imparts fierceness to the eater.?- Further, a distinction must 
be drawn between Mana according as it is used in a good or in a bad 
way. Thus, the translation of the Egyptian hike’ by “ magic” obscures 
the fact (a) that it is a power used also by the friendly and helpful 
gods, and (b) that there were anti-social, “‘ irreligious,’”’ and harmful 
practices which would more naturally deserve that name. Even low 
down in the scale, among the Arunta of Central Australia, besides the 
power which is helpful and beneficent there is arunkulta, the evil 
influence, or an embodiment or manifestation of it. It is therefore 


1 Thus, it includes the Indian Brahman, the Greek divas (G00, xpirrod), the 
holy rvtiue, gas and xépic, the ancient Egyptian hike’, and the modern Arab 
baraka. See also Orient. Lit. zeit. 1923, col. 378 sqg.; Nilsson, 81 sg. The baraka 
is a mysterious force vouchsafed to sacred men or to objects (oil, stones, bones) 
which have been in contact with sacred shrines, tombs, etc. It comes directly 
from living sheikhs or from dead spirits ¢JPOS. v. 177, 179). Westermarck 
(Morocco, i. 35-261) calls it “‘ holiness” or ‘‘ blessed virtue.” On hike’, magical 
arts, power, and mysterious ways of doing things, see A. H. Gardiner, Proc. Soc. 
Bibl. Arch. xxxvii. (1915), 253 sqq., xxxviii. 52; Peet, CAH, i.?, 354, ii. 199 sqq. 
In the Syriac Apocryphal Acts (ed. Wright, ii. 191, 258), the prayer of Judas 
Thomas enables divine power to enter water which heals the withered hands 
of a boy; and the “ power of Jesus ” enters anointing oil and gives it curative 
properties. 

2 On the question whether £7 means ‘“‘numen, mana,” see Beth, ZATW, xxxvi. 
129 sgqq., xxxviii. 87 sqq. The objection that in orthodox Yahwism it is not Mana 
(Kleinert, Baudissin-Festschrift, 283 sq.) seems to miss the point; the reflective 
and more orthodox view of an £I, as e.g. one that shows compassion (Jerahmeel), 
does not exclude the vaguer ideas of power (personal or impersonal) where the 
Elis less an object of close attention. 

3 Mana is powerful for life or for death; cf. W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination, 
a Study of its Methods and Principles, 99 sqq. (1913). See Marett, Psychology and 
Folklore, 64, 67, 163, 166 sqg.: the savage gets Mana only by observing strict 
chastity, or undergoing discipline; it is bestowed by an act of grace; received 
with fear and wonder, it can be lost if he becomes a drunkard ; in the Iroquois 


552 MANA AND TABOO 


necessary to avoid the confusion of (1) the evidence for the recognition 
of power which could be used in a way contrary to the interests of a 
tribe with (2) the more theoretical if not controversial question of 
the best employment of such terms as Magic, Mana, etc. 

Mana and Taboo are complementary.1 The taboo arises out of 
precaution, heed, fear. Many typical taboos reflect an almost 
mystical detestation of what is felt to be offensive or repulsive; a 
few would prove suicidal if persisted in (cf. 640). Some are essentially 
in the interests of a particular class. In general, they range between 
the vaguest fears of consequences, the dread of offending some one or 
something, and the most intelligible of prohibitions. Taboo by itself 
is restrictive, whereas Mana connotes a power to be utilized. Mana 
by itself leads to the belief that the power lies wholly in man’s hand, 
and can be set in motion by man. The data of Mana refer to the 
power which man can employ, the bad use of which is harmful and 
dangerous ; the data of Taboo refer characteristically to the appro- 
priate attitude that man must adopt where “sacred” things are 
concerned. ‘Together, Mana and Taboo direct attention to the prag- 
matic side of religion—religion partly as an attitude that enables the 
man to face life, partly as a means of effective living. This practical 
aspect runs through all religion (e.g. Matt. vi. 32 sq.) ; and in the Old 
Testament the holy and righteous Yahweh is not merely the recipient 
of his people’s prayers but acts on behalf of a people that complies 
with the conditions of the relationship between him and them. There 
is much truth in the distinction drawn by Malinowski,? that Religion 
is not a means to an end but an end in itself, whereas Magic is pro- 
gressive, with a clear, definite aim—a “‘ pseudo-science.”” But Religion 
fits a man to face any future, and it can lead to quietism; whereas 
typical Magic seeks to forestall or to compel the future, and tends 
to become the worst enemy of Religion. Yet this antithesis must not 
be pressed too far, for there are innumerable beliefs and practices 
which can be called “ magico-religious,’ because they combine 
imitative and other seemingly irrelevant and irrational practices for 
the welfare of the group with a spirit of reverence and awe, and with 
regulative taboos conducive to the stability of the group. Mana alone 
and Taboo alone become, on psychological grounds, stagnant and 
devoid of progressive elements ; whereas in combination the two are 
complementary, and stand at the head of series of developments. It 
is difficult to conceive the one without the other save in the secondary 


phrase, if a man “ lays down his own power ” in its presence, he will be filled with 
a new power which is good, but if used for exploitation is bad. 

1 See especially Marett, Threshold of Religion. 

2 Science, Religion, and Reality (ed. Needham), 38, 81. 


PARADOXES OF RELIGION 553 


stages, and in this respect Mana and Taboo find an analogy in the 
equally complementary ideas of Divine Immanence and Transcend- 
ence (p. 564). 

The widespread conception of Mana emphasizes the fact that 
man’s attention is commonly directed first to the strange, mysterious, 
and abnormal phenomena; a cause is demanded primarily for them, 
and only later, as it seems, for those more regular, but vital or im- 
pressive. Inquiry into the relation between (a) the cause of both 
these classes of phenomena and (b) the cause of all other and more 
familiar activities could not arise until the dawn of Science; and the 
equally important question of the relation between religious data and 
the non-religious but otherwise comparable data still attracts little 
attention. Similarly, attention is commonly directed more readily 
to all that evokes feelings of fascination, admiration, etc., than to its 
quality. The distinction between the jinn and the saint, between the 
devilish and the divine, between the blasphemous and the holy, has 
already been drawn by these terms themselves ; but there remain the 
phenomena which are not, or cannot be, immediately evaluated.! 
The difference between the application of the term “ sacred ”’ to the 
kedéshim of Israel and the prophets’ doctrine of Yahweh’s holiness 
is one of the most striking examples of an ethical development vital 
for the progress of religion; but the early history of the Church at 
Corinth shows how quickly a “ sacred’ ceremony can lose spiritual 
value. 

The paradoxical character of religion turns in large measure upon 
the coexistence of the good and the harmful aspects of “‘ powerful ”’ 
things. Salt preserves and kills; sun and rain are life-giving and 
destructive ; the blood of women is taboo, but it is effective in magic ; 
blood gives a higher life to those who partake of it, but is highly 
dangerous to those who are not entitled, or who act heedlessly ; the 
king is taboo, his touch can kill or it can cure; the dead corpse is 
dreaded as something “ unclean,” but a relic is an effective charm. 
The psychology of desire and disgust, of attraction and repulsion, 
accounts for some paradoxes. Further, there are topics so delicate 
and ‘“‘sacred’’ that, although the discussion of them is necessary, 
a careless or improper mishandling of them is shocking. The Sacred 
is double-edged and must be safeguarded. The individual who 
trespasses here runs the risk of causing serious offence to others as 
well as himself; and the history of Taboos is, in part, that of the 


1 Cf. the fascination of crime, etc., the unreflecting attitude to genius (perverse 
or other), and the readiness to distinguish the religious (or mystical) from the 
non-religious (or non-mystical) rather than to appraise the value (ethical, etc.) of 
religious (or mystical) data (e.g. true or false prophets, Messiahs, etc.). 


554 THE ‘“‘ NUMINOUS ” 


effort to regularize the treatment of the sacred and holy in ways recog- 
nized to be socially beneficial. 

Experiences that take men out of themselves have constantly J 
been interpreted as necessarily taking them into the realm of the © 
sacred, or bringing them into communion with supernatural beings 
(cf. p. 575). In man’s ignorance of the world and of himself, when — 
imagination and reality interpenetrated, and such activities as playing, — 
dancing, and other releases of energy could have an at least quasi- 
divine meaning, the idea of the “‘ sacred’ had almost boundless ex- 
tension. This is now more accurately recognized, and a wider concept 
has been coined in Rudolf Otto’s “‘ Numinous.” 1 Here are included 
all that is uncanny, weird, eerie, awful, fascinating, majestic, sub- 
lime, ecstatic. It thus extends into religion, mysticism, spiritualism, 
occultism, poetry, art, drama, and all else where a man is taken away 
from the world of the senses and has a vivid consciousness of what is 
supersensuous but real, and often more real than the experiences of 
ordinary life. But even as Mana is logically neutral and Religion has 
its paradoxes, so the mysterrwm tremendum et fascinosum lies behind 
religion, and not religion alone. Without taking into account the 
subjective “‘ numinous”’ states, it would be impossible to understand 
the presence, persistence, and progressive development of religion. 
But the “ numinous ”’ as such is not religious, even as the “ sacred,” 
and much that is placed in the category of “ religion”’ lies outside that 
more objective estimate of religion which a systematic treatment of the 
data requires. There are times when “ the religious consciousness, 
bursting its too narrow confines, seems at once to soar upward and to ~ 
plunge downward” (Cornford, CAH. iv. 533 sq.). But the main | 
stream of development is more important; and the extraordinary ~ 
range of data that claim to belong to the “‘ sacred’ and the “ holy” _ 
demand a methodology of the subject. W. R. S.’s conception of the — 
group-system, of holiness as kinship, and of the moral interrelations — 
between the members of groups and their gods, lays the necessary _ 
emphasis upon those experiences of the “‘ numinous ”’ which have been ~ 
valuable for mental, ethical, and social development, and on this — 
account appears to offer the best mode of approach to the profounder — 
problems of religion. | 

P. 163 note.—See Frazer, GB. and Tot. Hx. s.v. ‘“‘ Incest,” and his — 
Psyche’s Task’, on the effect of religious and related sanctions upon J 
the growth of society. é 

P. 164. Cursrs.—The gods, who of their own will are wont to defend — 
the right and punish wrong and thus uphold social order, are also — 


1 See Otto, The Idea of the Holy (transl. by J. W. Harvey; Oxford, 1925). 


“LIFE”? AND “ LIVING ”’ 555 


besought to curse the evil-doer ; and the entreaty sometimes becomes 
virtually a compulsion, whether through the words or the ritual or 
the agent employed. But even without gods or any specially named 
spirits there is frequent resort to a curse, whether with or without 
ceremonial ; and the curse, as it were, sets in motion a process which is 
believed to be effective. Both blessings and curses, in some of their 
characteristic forms at least, imply a process which either may be 
styled an inherent one, or is operated by powers, who, however, are 
not necessarily specified. The process or mechanism is such that the 
blessing once uttered cannot be taken back (Gen. xxvii. 33, 38), and 
the curse of the wise will be effective even against the innocent (Talm. 
Bab. Makk. 11a); contrast Prov. xxvi. 2.1 

P. 167. Lirz, Livine WatrrR.—(1) By “‘ Life” is meant not merely 
physiological conditions, but the state of being alive and of having 
that which makes life worth living? The Babylonian gods Inurta 
(Ninurta) and Gula are gods of healing and ‘‘ cause the dead to live,” 
and Marduk restores to life. But all the gods could do was to keep a 
man alive as long as possible (Jastrow, Rel. Bel. 365 sq.) ; resurrection 
of the dead is not meant, but rather a fresh lease of life, and “‘ fulness 
of days.” * There is also the hope of continuance in the god’s 
presence. It was enough that a man’s name was remembered, or 
that he was written in Yahweh’s ‘‘ book of life’; for with Yahweh 
was the “ fountain of life,’ and ‘‘ life” is essentially the most im- 
portant attribute of the gods. In Egypt both the gods and the semi- 
divine Pharaoh have the life-giving breath; the idea recurs in the 
Amarna Letters and was no doubt familiar throughout South-West 
Asia, where the divine-kingship ruled.’ Life and Breath were under- 
stood physically. The “‘ sign of life’ is given to the Pharaoh on his 
accession; and on other occasions it is depicted near his face in 
order that he can inhale or otherwise assimilate the ‘‘ power” it 


1See Goldziher, Abhand. i. 382, also ib. 29, and ii. p. civ; the comparative 
studies by W. S. Fox, AJSZ. xxx. 111 sqq., and G. L. Hendrickson, Amer. Journ. 
Philol. 1925, pp. 104 sqq.; and the mass of material collected by J. Hempel, “‘ die 
Israelit. Anschauungen von Segen u. Fluch,” ZDMG. 1925, pp. 20-100. For 
Westermarck’s views, see below, p. 692. 

2 See Baudissin, 480 sqq., and in Sachau-Festschrift, 143 sqq. ; also Lindblom, Das 
ewige Leben (Upsala, 1914). 

3 Norden, Geburt d. Kindes, 120, cites Ammian. xvii. 421 (Giov d&xpooxopor, 
life of which one cannot have too much). The hopes of Abgar, priest of Nerab, 
were for a good name, length of days, children of the fourth generation, and 
mourners to lament him (Cooke, No. 65). 

4 See C. H. W. Johns, Cambridge Biblical Essays (ed. Swete), 40 sq. 

6 Knudtzon, El-Amarna Tafeln, 1195, 1606; Baudissin, 503 sg.; Gressmann, 
Baud. Festschrift, 208. 


556 LIVING WATER 


contains. In certain ceremonies into which the “ water of life” enters, — 
the water is depicted with a string of symbols of the sign of life — 
(Blackman, PSBA.x1. 87). Purely spiritual or psychical ideas could only — 
be conceived in physical material terms, and in Hebrew, where ru%h — 
denoted the energy of Life as distinct from mere existence, the “ idea 
of personality is an animated body, and not an incarnated soul.” ? 

Primitive psychology, as Crawley has shown (The Idea of the Soul), 
could readily conceive of inanimate objects being as animate as trees — 
and animals. Several animating principles could even be recog- 
nized (life, soul, etc.); and in the primitive analyses of all that goes 
to make up a man, relatively complex results emerge, as when in 
Central Australia a man is born of totem-spirit stuff to which he will 
return, but yet has an individual soul of his own. The varying ideas 
of soul-spirit—life are everywhere very differently systematized, and 
the ability to entertain complex convictions of this sort in material — 
forms holds good of all peoples who have not reached that stage where 
the differentiation of a tangible body and an intangible spirit has 
become a presupposition.? See p. 676 sq. 

(2) Water, especially running water, is “‘ instinct with divine life 
and energy” (p. 173).4 It is ‘‘ purifying, consecrating, healing ”’ ; 
‘on y vit l’action d’un pouvoir supérieur sans distinguer entre la — 
naturel et le surnaturel.’’ It is the abode of dead souls, and to the 
significant traditions of gods who were drowned (on which see Eitrem, 
114) one must add the well-known sacrifices to water-spirits and the — 
strange superstition that it is unlucky to rescue the drowning—+.e. to 
deprive the water-spirit of its lawful victim (see Gomme, Ethnology 
in Folk-lore, 73). In both Egypt and Babylonia water was life-giving — 
and purifying—the two attributes converge. In Egypt there are 
‘* waters of life ’’ in both sky and on earth ;® in Babylonia water-gods — 
are prominent in incantations, and ceremonies to ward off evil spirits 
were often held on the bank of a river.’ Ishtar is sprinkled with the — 
waters of life before her ascent from the underworld. Marduk was — 


¢ 


1 Cf. metaphors connected with breath, odour, and welfare, Eitrem, 212 sq. 
2 H. Wheeler Robinson, in Peake, People and the Book, 360, 362, 381. . 
3 See Crawley, Mystic Rose, 79 sq., Tree of Life, 236; Kreglinger, Etudes sur — 
Vorigine et le développement de la vie religieuse, i. 163 sq. (Brussels, 1919) ; cf. ERE. — 
art. ‘* Religion,” § 23. 4 
4 See Lagrange, 158 sqq. (with criticisms of W. R. 8.) ; Toy, §§ 3806 sqqg.; Moore, — 
E.Bi. “ Idolatry,” § 2. | 
5 It is possible that the root-meaning of ‘“‘ holy ” (w1p) is pure, bright, or clean 
(see E.Bi. “ Clean,” § 1). 
6 See, further, Breasted, Rel. and Thought, 19; Blackman, PSBA. xl. 57 sqq., _ 
86 sqqg.; and Arch. f. Rel. 1904, p. 40 sq. 
7 Morgenstern, 60, cf. 29, 84. 


SACRED WATERS 557 


lord of the deep (apshu, the ocean below the earth; Wardle, Israel and 
Bab. 147), and lord of springs (bel nakbe) ; and his sacred water healed 
men. In Zoroastrianism water is full of ‘‘ glory” (hvarenah), and 
gives might and glory (Sdéderblom, Werden d. Gottesglaubens, 248). 
Waters are frequently regarded as impregnating, and fertility is caused 
by drinking or bathing.1_ In Palestine the weli is the reputed husband 
of the barren women who bathe in springs with success (Curtiss, 117). 
The power of sacred waters is ascribed to some traditional figure (e.g. 
a sheikh) or is explained by a legend; thus, it was in the basin of the 
Sitti Mariam in Jerusalem that the Virgin once bathed, and certain 
wells are sacred and have healing properties because once a year their 
waters are supposed to mingle with the holy well Zamzam (JPOS. 
iv. 65; cf. above, p. 167 sq.). The tenth of Moharram is an especially 
efficacious day for bathing, and at Askalon women still bathe in the 
sea at the festival of Hosain (J POS. 1.c.; see v. 198). On this festival, 
see p. 321 and note 4. 

According to W. R. S., the sacred character of waters and springs 
is to be explained on general principles, the legends or deities associated 
with them being secondary (p. 184). The main criticisms, on the other 
hand, start from these; and it is observed, e.g., that waters, springs, 
etc., have neither temples nor priesthood, and “ the superstitions of 
the Semites have not prevailed against the fundamental principle 
which made gods, not of animated things, but of the forces which put 
them in movement” (Lagrange, 166). What is at issue is the question 
whether the Semites recognized an inherent power in things without 
reference to personal powers acting upon or in them; and the very 
history of sacred waters should show that the readiness to believe in 
their sanctity is more fundamental than the traditional saints or 
stories, which, however amply they justify the sanctity, are apt to 
change throughout the ages.” 

P. 168 n. 1.—See Mordtmann and Miiller, Sab. Denkmdler, 10; 
Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Pélerinage a la Mekke, 73. 

P. 169 and n. 1.—For the Palmyrene inscription referred to, 
see Lidzbarski, Handbuch der nordsemit. Epigraphik (Weimar, 1898), 
i. 153 n. 7, 476, No. 11: ynnn porSdowa [Tay sng 2 Nry 17 89) 
my Sy nodwe ot... wy 72 soda. Clermont-Ganneau (Rev. 
Archéol. xxviii. 138 sqq.) finds a reference to the “ guardian” 


1 Farnell, Cults, v. 423; Hartland, Primitive Paternity, i. 23, 66, 80 sqq., 136; 
Frazer, GB. ii. 160 sqgg.; R. C. Thompson, Semitic Magic, 79 sq.; Canaan, JPOS, 
yv. 193 (water cures impotence). 

2 Lagrange (165 n. 1), among other criticisms, objects to W. R.8., p. 170 n. 1, 
on the ground that the pool being one of the artificial reservoirs in the Hauran would 
dry up annually and could scarcely be the object of a cult. 


i ae 


558 WELLS, RIVERS, ORDEALS 


of the well (ésieAnrns, reading ’ppN3); cf. the “ guardianship” — 
(moppx) of Yarhibol in the Paplmyrene inscription edited by 
Lidzbarski, Ephemeris, ii. 300. For Bethesda and its inter- — 
mittent bubbling springs, see E. W. G. Masterman, Quart. Statements — 
of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1921, p. 93 sq., who refers to the — 
popular belief that a dragon lives beneath the ‘‘ Virgin’s Fountain ” ; 
also R. A. S. Macalister, Century of Excavation in Palestine, 141 sq. — 
On the association of serpents with springs, see Baudissin, 338 (n. 2), — 
and his article ‘‘ Drache” in Protest, Real-Encycl. For temples and — 
springs, see Baudissin 244 (cult of Eshmun), Morgenstern 31 (Baby- — 
lonia); and for the modern belief that Turkish baths are inhabited by — 
jinn, see J POS. iv. 65 n. 4. 

P. 169 and n. 3.—The Tigris and Euphrates, as also the rivers of — 
Phoenicia, had their gods (see Lagrange, 160 sqg., 165; KAT. 359, — 
525 n. 5). In the treaty between Rameses um. and the Hatti, gods of — 
rivers are among the witnesses (Breasted, Anc. Rec. iii. § 386). In 
note 3 add the reading \ipévwy (Grotius), adopted by Stiibe (131 n.) — 
and Lagrange (161 n. 5). 9 

P. 170 n. 4.—Cais may mean “‘ husband’’; so Winckler, Altorient. — 
Forschungen, ii. 321; Arab.—Semit.Orient. (MV AG. 1901, iv.) 84 n. It — 
is certainly not connected with Cozah, and doubtfully (so Néldeke, — 
ZDMG. 1889, p. 714 n. 1) with the Edomite Cos, Caus. 7 

P. 176. SacrED Fisu.—For Edessa, see also Duval, Journ. Asiat. 
xviii. (1891) 92, 231, and in general see Frazer, Pausanias, iv. 153; — 
E.Bi. “‘ Fish” §§ 9-11; Garstang on Lucian, § 45; Reinach, Cultes, — 
iii. 43 sq., 515 sq.; Cumont, Orient. Relig. ch. v. notes 36 and 37; — 
and F. J. Délger, Der hetlige Fisch 1. d. antik. Relig. u. 1. Christentum — 
(1922). a 

P. 180. ORDEALS AND OatTHs.—See Wellhausen, 186 sq.; Halliday, — 
Greek Divination, 112; Morgenstern, Heb. Union Coll., Jubilee Vol. — 
(Cincinatti, 1925), pp. 113 sqq. Eitrem (117 n. 1) cites parallels to the — 
omen at Aphaca (above, p. 178 and n. 2). For the story of Hind 
(p. 180 n. 3), see Kinship, 123; and for the ordeal by the “ waters — 
of jealousy,” see H.Bi, 2342 sq.; Gray, Numbers, 44 sq.; Halliday, k 
105 sqg.; and, on the text, Bewer, AJSL. xxx. 36 sqqg. In Num. v. 17_ 
(“‘ holy water’’) the LX X reads “living water.”’ Ndldeke’s reference — 
(p. 181 n. 3) is to Lagarde, Relig. 134, and the Mandean Sidra Rabba, 
i. 224,8. In the Code of Hammurabi (§§ 2, 132) the person accused of © 
witchcraft and the woman suspected of adultery are thrown to the — 
Sacred River or River-god ; this was also the ancient German method ~ 

1 Was the spring at “Artas, guarded by a ram, supposed to be a gateway to the : 


underworld ? (Prof. Halliday, in a private communication; see his remarks in 
Folk-lore, 1923, p. 182). 


THE NUMEN ; THE WELL 559 


of testing the legitimacy of children (Dareste, Journ. des Savants, 1902, 
p- 519 n. 1). On the quasi-mechanical principle underlying the curse 
and ordeal, where gods and spirits are not specifically mentioned, see 
above, p. 555.1 

P. 182 n. 2.—The text of Amos is retained by Driver, Sir G. A. 
Smith, etc. In a song at the Nebi Musa festival (Canaan, JPOS. 
vi. 135 n. 2), the way leading to the Sanctuary of the Prophet (taric 
en-nabt) is called upon to rejoice. But the parallelism and the LXX 


(6 eds gov) have suggested the reading PN (so Dozy), 83 


(Wellhausen, Elhorst), and preferably 715, “ thy numen” (G. Hoff- 
mann, Winckler [Aléor. Forsch. i. 194 sq.]). With the last cf. the name 
name WN (for WN ?), ‘‘ Yahu is friend (uncle, cousin, patron),”’ 


and the parallels in Assyrian (KA7'. 483), South Arabian (37575, 
etc.), and the obscure 77}7 on the inscription of Mesha (Cooke, 11). 
As regards the meaning of d-d, cf. the Abyssinian name Arka Dengel, 
t.e. Friend of the Virgin, cited by Néldeke, H#.Bz. col. 3289, § 47. 

P. 183 n. 2. THe Sone To THE WELL.—Gray (Numbers, 289) cites, 
inter alia, a parallel from Nilus, col. 648. Gressmann (Mose, 350) 
cites Musil, Arab. Petrea, i. 298, a parallel from the Arnon district, 
where the modern sheikh has taken the place of the nobles in Numbers. 
In Egypt, well-digging was a royal duty; see Breasted, Anc. Rec. iii. 
§ 195 (with a prayer to Amon and to the gods dwelling in the well on 
behalf of Seti 1., the good shepherd who dug the well), and § 292 (where 
the water in the nether world hearkens to Rameses 1. when he digs the 
well). ; 

P. 185 sq. SAckRED TREES.2—On a connexion between the words 
for ‘‘ tree” and “‘ god ”’ (’é/)—both involving the idea of ‘‘ power ’’—see, 
besides p. 196 n. 4, Baudissin, 433 sg., who comments on the dis- 
tinction drawn between human (or animal) and vegetable life, and on 
the points of contact (personification, etc.). As elsewhere, questions 
arise, (1) whether there is a sacred life or power intrinsic or “‘ im- 
manent ’”’ (p. 194) in the species or single tree, (2) whether this is due 
to ‘‘ sacred ’’ life-giving water (p. 192), or (3) whether the tree is an 


1 Otherwise, when lots are cast the actual decision (mzshpat) comes from God 
(Prov. xvi. 33), and the guilty may be asked to admit its justice (Josh. vii. 19). 
Westermarck (Moral Ideas, i. 626) gives as one of the reasons for the efficacy of the 
curses and, blessings of fathers the mystery of old age and the nearness of death. 
That the dying are in touch with the supernatural realm has also accounted for the 
prolonged torture of unhappy victims from whom knowledge of the unseen could 
accordingly be extracted (Halliday). 

2 See art. Tree-worship in /. Bi. (G. F. Moore), Ency. Brit. (S. A. Cook) ; Lagrange, 
th. v. §2; Barton, Semitic Origins, 87 sqq.; Toy, §§ 262 sqqg.; Baudissin, Adonis 
(see his Index, 535) ; Frazer, POT’. iii. ch. xv. 


560 SACRED TREES 


embodiment or a vehicle of some external power, and (4) whether the — 
specific tradition which explains its sanctity is of primary or even ~ 
secondary value. At the present day it has been computed that about 
60 per cent. of the Palestinian shrines have trees ; but the more modern — 
welis tend to do without them (Canaan, JPOS. iv. 30 sqq.). Such trees — 
are not to be harmed, and if one is cut down another is planted in its P 
place. The fruit may be plucked to satisfy hunger; but it is safer — 
to recite the fatihah before one plucks, and it should not be carried — 
away. Branches may be removed for festal purposes, or in order to — 
cook meals in fulfilment of a vow. The practice of hanging rags and — 
other portions of one’s personal belongings upon a sacred tree, and of : 
taking away others which have been hanging there and now serve as 
amulets, implies a belief in the inherent sanctity of the tree. This — 
sanctity is usually explained as due to the welt, or there is some appro- — 
priate tradition. In early Christian times a sacred tree at Samosata — 


was worshipped, and justifiably, as the wood of the Cross (Chwolson, 


i. 293); but another tree to which the villagers burnt incense, and q 
which Thomas of Marga condemns, was the abode of a “demon” — 
(ed. Budge, 242; cf. 2b. 511). At Tell el-Kadi, two large trees by 


the side of a stream shade the tomb of Sheikh Merzuk, who has taken — 


the place of a dog. The ‘ Laurel Lady,” with dripping sword, mani- 
fested herself in a terebinth in 1917, driving back the British troops 
in their advance (Canaan, JPOS. iv. 71). The olive-tree is especially — 
holy (J POS. vi. 18, 20 n. 8, 188). For a parallel to the acacia (p. 133 — 


above), see JPOS. iv. 71 n.1; and for the belief that the palm-tree 


is sacred because it was created from the earth with which God made j 
Adam, see Canaan, JPOS. iv. 14. Many of the modern sacred trees — 
seem to be survivors of woods or groves (ib. iv. 34), and the existence _ 
of sacred groves and gardens at Daphne and elsewhere (cf. Frazer, — 
FOT. iii. 67 sqq.) may explain the tendency of the LXX and Vulg. to — 
translate ashérah by ‘“‘ grove”? (for details, see Burney, Kings, 191). — 
See further next note. | 

P. 188. THe GopprEss AsHERAH.1—W. R. S.’s denial (with Well- — 
hausen, Stade, etc.) that there was a goddess Asherah—although he © 
did not deny that ‘‘ in some places the general symbol of deity had — 
become a special goddess ’’—was hardly an “ arbitrary theory” — 
(Lagrange, 120); and his reasons, even if inadequate, are at least worthy — 
of notice. (a) He urged that the tree or stock was thesymbol of a god — 
(Jer. ii. 27); though the fact that tree and stone (és and ’eben) are — 


1 See Stiibe, 145; Lagrange, 120 sgq.; Burney, Judges, 196 sqg. For Kuenen’s ; 
essay (p. 189 n. 1 1. 8), see the German translation in the volume edited by Budde 
(1894), and cf. Moore, Z.Bi.col. 3991. In Micah v.13 (see p. 188, middle), for “thy — 
cities’’ read “‘ thy idols ” (as in 2 Chron. xxiv. 18). t 


ASHERAH : GODDESS AND TREE-TRUNK 561 


respectively masculine and feminine may be merely a grammatical 
point (Baud. 176 n. 2). Next, (b) as the Astarte-cult of Ahab’s day 
was Tyrian, the asherah which Jehu left standing (2 Kings xiii. 6) was 
therefore not Tyrian ; and (c) there is no evidence for a divine pair in 
Israel. On the other hand, apart from textual difficulties, the trend of 
archeological and other contemporary evidence is to obliterate the 
line which W. R. S. draws between “ Israelite’? and ‘‘ Canaanite ”’ 
religion, between the higher elements of Semitic religion and the 
popular Yahwism “ which had all the characters of Baal worship ”’ 
(p. 194): though the similarity between the religion of Israel and 
that of surrounding peoples only enhances the uniqueness of the more 
spiritual and ethical monotheistic teaching of the great prophets. 

Asherah was West Semitic, perhaps “‘ Amorite”’; a dedication on 
behalf of Hammurabi calls her “‘ bride of the king of heaven,” “‘ lady 
(beltt) of vigour and joy (kuzbi wu ulsz), intercessor, etc. In a cunei- 
form tablet found at Ta‘anach reference is made to an omen by the 
finger (w-ba-an) of the deity A-shi-rat; and in the Amarna Letters her 
name recurs in that of the great anti-Egyptian Amorite chief Abd- 
Ashirta (or Ashrat, also written Abd-Ashtarti, with the determinative 
of deity). Ashirat and Ishtar (Astarte, etc.), though akin in nature, 
are not etymologically connected, the derivation of Ishtar being quite 
uncertain, while the name Ashirat possibly connotes ideas of good 
fortune (like Gad, Tyche).? 

The asherah is the tree or tree-trunk familiar throughout South- 
West Asia. Sometimes a tree is shorn of branches and lopped off 
short (Susa; see Vincent, Canaan, 144 sqq.), and among the Kissil 
Bashi of the Upper Tigris a trimmed oak-trunk stands under a tree 
at the eastern end of the village within a railed-off space into which only 
the “‘ father priest’ can enter (The Standard of 19th September 1904). 
Similar objects of cult are familiar elsewhere.2 In the Phoenician 
Ma‘sub inscription (“‘ the Astarte in the Asherah’’) the object may be 
a sign-post set up to mark the boundary (Moore, H#.Bi. col. 332; cf. 
Cooke, 50, Lagrange, 448 sqg.); compare the stele set up as landmarks 
by Ikhnaton to mark the boundary of the holy city of Akhetaton 
(Breasted, Anc. Rec. ii. §§ 949 sqq.; Baikie, Amarna Age, 265 sqq.), 


1 See comm. on 2 Kings x. 26 (and Lagrange, 123 n., 207 n.), where what was 
burnt was presumably an asherah and not a stone pillar. 

2 KAT. 432 sq.; Sellin, Taannek, i. 114, cf. 108 (for “ finger,” cf. Ex. viii. 19[15)) ; 
Gressmann, Altorient. Texte z. A.T.2i. 371; Jirku, Altorient. Kommentar zwm Alt. 
Test. 118. 

3 See F. B. Jevons, Introd. to Hist. of Rel. 134 sg.; Moore, #.Bi. col. 30 n. 2 
Newberry (ature, cxii. 942) compares the neter pole, and Sidney Smith (Journ. 
of £g. Arch, viii, 41) the sed pillar of Egypt. 


36 


562 THE EMBODIMENT AS DEITY 


At all events, the question remains whether the name of the goddess 
or that of the tree-trunk as her symbol or as her embodiment is the 
older. For the treatment of sacred objects (e.g. royal regalia) as in 
themselves sacred, that is, virtually as effective as the gods them- 
selves, there are many parallels ancient and modern.1 Here are to be 
named the Hkurrate deities (lit. temples) in Assyrian (Delitzsch, 
Handwérterbuch), and in Mandean magical texts, where male Ekurs 
(NDP) are mentioned with female Ishtars (Lidzb. Hphem. i. 100 sq.).? 
Bait-il (Bethel) is also the name of a god. The Nabatean nanyo (CIS. 
ii. 198) is named with Dusares as (a) his seat or abode (cf. ZDMG. 
xxix. 107 sq. 1. 185) or (0) ‘‘ his wife” (in a secondary sense; Winckler, 
Altor. Forsch. ii. 62, 321). With this compare the XaaBouv (above, 
p. 56 n.), Zeus MaddB8ayos, the cult of the Bapos péyas (see Meyer, 
Israel. 295, and A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 519 sqq.), and the widespread cult 
of the empty throne. On the Jewish usage of the Shechinah (the 
‘“‘ abode’? of God) for the Deity Himself, see J. Abelson, The Im- 
manence of God in Rabbinical Literature, 79.4 

P. 191.—On the story of Osiris, see, in the first instance, Frazer, 
GB. vi. 9 sq., 108 sqq., and Baudissin’s discussion in Adonis und Esmun, 
174 sqq., 185 sqgqg. On Adonis, see Baudissin, 7b., and Frazer, GB. v. and 
Vi. passim. 

P. 193.—On the Ambrosian rocks at Tyre, see Gressmann, Mose, 
26; A. B. Cook, Zeus, iii.; and S. A. Cook, Schweich Lectures. On 
the Arab belief that ghosts and the like appear in or accompanied 
with flames, see Goldziher, Abhand. i. 205 sqqg. Stories of trees with 
mysterious lights or in flames are current in Palestine, Qy. St. of the 
PEF., 1872, p. 179 ; 1893, p. 203 ; Curtiss, 93; Gressmann, Mose, 28 n.; 
the practice of hanging lamps on trees may account for some of the 
beliefs. In Yemen in the nineteenth century a tree formed by two or 
three growing into one was regarded as sacred, sacrifices were offered 
to it, and a voice was heard speaking from its branches (A. 8. Tritton, 


1 Frazer, GB. i. 362 sqq., iv. 202. Seligman (British Association, Manchester, _ 
1915) reported that in the Sudan, where the great Queen Soba is worshipped as an 
ancestress, a stone or “ throne ” is the chair of the kingdom, and rocks associated 
with her are called after her name; the prayers made to “ grandmother Soba ” 
testify to a confusion between the goddess and the particular stone invoked. 4 

2 Moore (E.Bi., 332) compares the Phoen. names $373, Samay, client or servant 
of the temple (i.e. the god) ;_ cf. above, p. 531. . 

8 Add the divine obs or “image” (see p. 587) and the Mandzan demon 


xnanp or “idol.” See Gressmann, Zeit. f. d. Neutest. Wissenschaft, xx. (1921) g 


224 sq.; and S. A. Cook, Schweich Lectures (on the god Bethel). 
4 At more advanced stages, instead of the cult-object, the attribute, emanation, 


name, etc., become separate entities ; see Farnell, vol. of Rel. 74, on the venera- . 


tion of the Fravashi or Soul of Ahura and the @20d Lpévoe. 


IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE 563 


Calcutta Oriental Conference, 1922 [published 1923], 580). On trees 
that speak, sing, or prophesy, see also M. R. James, Testament of 
Abraham (1892), 59 sqq. (the cypress is specially sacred) ; Marmorstein, 
Arch. f. Rel. xvii. 132. As to what is said of Mamre the old reports 
differ: Syncellus speaks of the terebinth of Shechem (see Gressmann, 
Mose, loc. cit.; Bacher, ZATW. xxix. 148 sqq. ; Krauss, 1b. 296 sqq.; 
and Frazer, FOT’. iii. 57 sqq.). 

P. 194, IMMANENCE AND TRANSOENDENCE.—The not uncommon 
view that the Jewish or the Semitic idea of deity was solely transcendent 
has often been denied.1 Characteristic differences between Semitic 
and Greek religion have been emphasized, eg. by Farnell (Higher 
Aspects of the Greek Religion, 132 sq.). But although in the former 
there is what has been styled a slave-temper, the latter has not the 
warmth and confidence which distinguish Semitic religion. Semitic 
religion has extraordinary extremes (CAH. i.? 197 sqq.). But the 
contrast between the exclusiveness of the Semitic gods and the 
universality of the Indo-European (Meyer, Gesch. Alt. i. §§ 557, 582) 
must not obscure the debt to the Semites for the development of the 
conception of the intimate relationship between the gods and the 
members of the group (social, religious, or ecclesiastical). The Semites’ 
conviction of divine supremacy never prevented them from adopting 
the attitudes they would assume to a powerful ruler to whose good 
nature— and sense of duty and prestige—they could appeal (cf. Num, 
xiv. 14 sqq., Josh. vii. 9). In Ezekiel, Divine Transcendence is most 
prominent; but it is only one aspect of the Divine Nature (W. H. 
Bennett, Rel. of the Post-Exilic Prophets [1907], 30 sg.). What was 
said of a wrathful Yahweh did not exclude the chastening love of a 
Father. And, to take another case, the insistent demand of Honi 
(Onias) for rain was denounced as unreasonable and sinful, but God 
accepted his prayer and treated him—in the words of Simeon ben 
Shetah—“‘ as a son that acts as a sinner to his father, but he grants 
his request.”’* See also p. 588. 

In both Jewish and Mohammedan prayer there is an element of 
importunity if not of compulsion ;* and as a general rule it is frequently 
difficult to draw the line between propitiation and persuasion and 
coercion (Crawley, Tree of Life, 188). In fact, besides the way in 


1 See, e.g., G. F. Moore, History of Religions, ii. 73; C .G. Montefiore, Hibbert 
Lectures (ed. of 1897), 424 sqq. (for post-exilic Judaism); J. Abelson, The Im- 
manence of God in Rabbinical Literature (1912); and I. Abrahams, Studies in 
Pharisaism and the Gospels (2nd Ser. 1924), 149 sq. 

2 Biichler, Types of Jewish Palestinian Piety (1922), 252 sqq., cf. 246 sq. 

3 See Goldziher, Néldeke-Festschrift, 314, who cites the Talm. Bab. Sanhed. 
1054: ** boldness (x»x1n) avails even against Heaven.” 


564 COMPLEMENTARY IDEAS 


which the Egyptians would threaten their sacred animals (Plut. Js. 
73), gods and saints are often treated badly in order to force them to 
remove drought or other peril. They will be taunted (cf. 1 Kings 
xviii. 27); and steps may be taken to irritate a modern welt, in order 
to arouse him to manifest his power. Such evidence indicates that 
problems of Immanence and Transcendence involve the varying 
degree of divinity attributed to the gods and spirits. For often these 
are little more than supermen, doing “‘ easily’ what is difficult: for 
men—the Homeric peta (Nilsson, 157); while, on the other hand, 
there are outstanding individuals, supermen, scarcely if at all inferior 
to the gods, and adequate embodiments of ideas of divinity. 

The ideas of Immanence and of Transcendence are complementary. 
When gods are felt to be remote and no longer in touch with men, 
they lose their authority. Typically, the sacred beings must not be 
approached save by the sacred, they must be treated with respect, and 
intermediaries may be necessary. Such gods will become the gods of 
a special class or caste; and the nature of the cult, or the myths, or 
the doctrines, will sever them from the community and make them 
accessible only to the few. Internal social changes, the movement of 
thought, or disasters which seem to prove the helplessness of the gods, 
combine to make them more or less negligible (cf. Zeph. i. 12). When 
more accessible and more intelligible beings arise, they are nearer at 
hand, and they, better than the ‘‘ remote” gods, understand human 
needs. On the other hand, when gods are felt to be near at hand, 
and in close touch with men, they may lose their distinctive sanctity 
and cease to be the gods they once were. They may be easily manage- 
able by prayers and charms, or too well known to be feared ; the key 
of the religious mechanism lies wholly in human hands. The gods 
then become so completely one with their visible abodes, so entirely 
comprehensible, that they virtually cease to exist, and need no dis- 
tinctive term: they are lost in their embodiment. 

The history of religion is, broadly speaking, that of efforts to escape 
from the two extremes: the god who is so remote, so unknown or 
unknowable as to be negligible, and the god so completely known as to 
be unnecessary. ‘There aresome highly instructive vicissitudes. Con- 
trast, e.g., the popular idea of a Yahweh who could be put to the test 
with the severe condemnation of such familiarity and lack of faith (see 
CAH. iii. 485). Constantly the god has come to be confused with his 
symbol or vehicle (p. 562), the metaphor has been taken literally, and 
the religious system treated as final. It is thus possible to distinguish 
the more primary and the more secondary developments, and to 


1 JPOS, vi. 5 (e.g. filth is put on the tomb) ; cf, GB. i. 300 sq., 307 sq. 


THEIR PRIMITIVENESS 565 


contrast the more creative movements with those tendencies along 
the extremes, either of Immanence or of Transcendence, which would 
lead nowhere. Accordingly, the combination of the two conceptions 
is seen to be of primary significance, and it may fairly be said to 
correspond to the combination of Mana and Taboo among rudimentary 
peoples, where man feels that he can utilize a power, but must be 
heedful (see p. 551 n.3).1 In Central Australian totemism the cere- 
monies for the control or multiplication of the totem species (commonly 
an edible animal or plant) are conducted as though those processes, 
which among less rudimentary peoples are usually associated directly 
or indirectly with the gods, lay within the power of the officiants. 
Yet at the same time they are in the “‘ sacred” state psychologically 
akin to that which elsewhere accompanies the consciousness of, and 
fellowship with, a sacred and transcendent power. Again, special 
individuals (priests, priestly kings, rain-makers, etc.) constantly 
act, for the time being at least, as the embodiments or vehicles or 
representatives of a sacred power; but although the divine and 
human thus converge, and the divine power is, in a sense, immanent 
in the man, the difference between the sacred man and the sacred 
power is not necessarily obliterated (p. 545). The group-system, 
uniting gods and their worshippers, did not necessarily involve the 
lowering of the god-idea, although, as W. R. 8. points out, there was a 
tendency in this direction, and, as far as Israel was concerned, it was 
corrected by the prophets (p. 74). Here it must be recognized that 
W. R. S. makes a very important point. In the group-system the 
insistence upon the sacredness of the gods tended to prevent them from 
being wholly immanent ; none the less, the teaching of the prophets 
shows that even a national religious system could be a dangerously 
“* closed ”’ one because of the inadequate conception of Yahweh and of 
his “‘ righteousness.” The danger lay in the imperfect ideas of the 
most vital concepts—the “‘ transcendental’? concepts, in fact. No 
actual living system of beliefs and practices is really a closed one; 
outside it is that which makes for the further development of con- 
ceptions of God, Man, and the Universe. Cf. pp. 508, 525. 

Whether such terms as Immanence and Transcendence should be 
used in reference to the simpler and older religions may seem doubtful 
in view of the absence among them of explicit conceptions of Nature. 
It was, of course, possible to distinguish between what was felt to be 
normal, natural, or intelligible, and the opposite. But primitive 


1Cf. Marett, Psychology and Folklore, 166: ‘‘ It is the common experience of 
man that he can draw on a power that makes for, and in its most typical forms 
wills righteousness, the sole condition being that a certain fear, a certain shyness 
and humility accompany the effort so to do.” 


566 CHTHONIC DEITIES 


man, it may be said, would co-operate with the supernatural world, or 
would claim to do what elsewhere are the recognized functions of 
‘* gods,” or are subsequently regarded as ‘‘ natural” processes. He 
located the supernatural power where he happened to experience it, 
and the difficulty for us is to understand, not so much the varying 
conceptions of the supernatural, but the varying and contradictory 
interrelations between the supernatural and “natural.” In the 
case of the Semites, pantheism was avoided because material things 
were symbols rather than realities (W. R. 8., Lectures, 425). The god 
was behind or over “‘ nature,’’ his breath animated life; and when a 
divine power was felt to be ‘‘ immanent ”’ in sacred hills, waters, etc. 
(above, pp. 173, 190, 194), this was not derived from a specific belief 
in a Supreme God which had been watered down and degraded; the 
explanation lies rather in the subjectivity of the Semite, as W. R. 8. 
had already pointed out in a brilliant essay on the “‘ Poetry of the 
O.T.” (Lectures, 400 sqq.). 

P. 197 n. Aponis Rops.—See Frazer, GB. v. 236 sqq. Baudissin 
(87 sq.) questions their use as omens. Rods are also used in divination 
(above, p. 196 n.; see, on the subject, Halliday, Greek Divination, 
226 sq.), or for working witchcraft; cf. the story of Circe, etc., also the 
pointing-stick of the wonder-worker in Australia and the Torres Straits. 

P. 198. Semrric Catuonic Derrres.—Chthonic cults are associated 
partly with earth-dwelling powers and partly, as Baudissin argues 
(31, 53), with the youthful god who rises and returns to the under- 
world. A chthonic power is not necessarily limited to terrestrial 
attributes, and in Greece, thund r, if not also lightning, could be 
chthonian (A. B. Cook, Zeus, ii. 805 n. 6). Besides cults connected 
with chasms and with tombs (viz. libations poured on the ground, 
see p. 580), the Rephaim—“ shades,” were perhaps “ healers’ (cf. 
Lagrange, 318 sq.), though not all the dead were so regarded (Baud. 
343). W. R. S. (in Driver, Deuteronomy, 40) agrees with Schwally 
(Das Leben nach dem Tode, 64 sq.) that there is some connexion 
between the Rephaim—“ shades’”’ or ghosts and extinct giants (such as 
were supposed to have haunted the district of Antioch); the Emim 
are to be connected with the Hebrew ’émah, “‘ terror”; and the Zam- 
zummim are “ whisperers, murmurers.”” W. R. S. compares the 
Arabic ’azif, the eerie sound of the jinn (Heid. 150). Among special 
chthonic deities are Nerga!l, Molek (Milk), and Kronos: on their 
interrelations, see Lagrange, 104 sqg.; but note A. B. Cook, Zeus, 
ii. 1107 sqq. Milkat is named on a Carthaginian tabella devotionis dedi- 
cated to the “‘ Great Ones Hawwat, Allat, Milkat...” (?)1 To Allat 


1... xn20°w nado nbx mn nan. See Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil, iii. 304, 
v. 87; Cooke, No. 50; Lidzbarski, Ephem. i. 26 sqq. - 


CAVES, CHASMS, ETC. 567 


(on whom see p. 56) corresponds the Babylonian Ereshkigal, mistress 
of the underworld and wife of Nergal. The name of Hawwat is 
presumably to be compared with ‘‘ Eve” and “‘ serpent”; the place 
of the serpent in chthonic cults needs no illustration... With the three- 
fold invocation Clermont-Ganneau (fec. iv. 90) compares the three- 
fold Hecate and her serpent attributes. 

P. 198 n. 2. Tum ZAKKURE,—JIn the passage cited, a young 
woman shortly about to give birth to a child is hung up and the babe 
cut out; by means of magic the zakkiré ascend from the middle of 
the earth, and agree to recognize their co-religionist, the Emperor 
Julian, as supreme king. More magic is performed by means of the 
child, which is restored to the body of its mother, who is laid upon the 
altar. Julian then makes his first ceremonial offering to the ruler of 
the world and to the powers above and below, and forthwith Satan 
enters into him as into a temple. For classical parallels, see Halliday, 
Greek Divination, 243 n. 1. 

P. 199. Caves, CHASMS, AND THE F'LOoop.—In Palestine caves are 
sometimes found outside the tombs of saints ; but sometimes they are 
found or supposed to exist within the shrine, and it is believed that the 
saint’s body lies concealed there. Among the famous caves are those 
of the Patriarchs at Machpelah, Elijah at Carmel and Horeb, Astarte 
at Kasimiyeh (Clermont-Ganneau, Rec. v. 333), and of Ablin (Apollo) 
and el-Makdira at Sidon, the former containing figures of Apollo, 
the latter, inter alia, a hideous female figure (Badeker, s.v.). At Gezer 
there was current one of the not unfamiliar local traditions that the 
Deluge rose in a tannir or baking-oven (Clermont-Ganneau, Archeo- 
logical Researches, ii. 235, 237, 456, 480, 490); and it is tempting to 
associate with the story the great tunnel which was discovered there, 
and which in turn recalls the watercourse or tunnel (s¢nnér) of Jeru- 
salem (2 Sam. v. 8).2. (On Lucian [references in n. 2], see for discus- 
sions and parallels, Torge, Seelen und Unsterblichkeitshoffnungen, 134 
[Leipzig, 1909].) 

P. 200. Muaaron.—The word may be of independent (Cretan ? 
Aigean ?) origin (cf. Aéoxn, p. 587 below). On the distinction in Greek 
between the underground cavern and the (Homeric) large hall, see 


10On Eve as the mother-serpent, see Gressmann, Harnack-Festschrift, 37 sq. 
(contrast W. R. S., Kinship, 208, Eve as the great eponyma). Note the serpent 
deity of Dér who was “ lady of life ” (ib.), and Nin-Azu the deity of healing and of 
vegetation and lord of the underworld (Morgenstern, 51). On aconnexion between 
creeping animals and the spirits of the dead, see H. P. Smith, Journ. of Bibl. Lit. 
xxx. 55 sqqg.; Amer. Journ. of Theol. 1909, pp. 224 sqq. 

2 Vincent, Qy. St. of the PEF., 1908, pp. 218 sqqg. See R. A. 8, Macalister, 
Qy. St, 1903, p. 218 (cf. 241); Hxcavation of Gezer, i. 264, 


568 SACRED STONES 


Frazer, Pausanias, iii. 15; Burney, Judges, xviii and xixn. The 
earliest inhabitants of Crete lived in caves, which continued to be used 
as centres of cult; and at Tiryns the megaron of the palace was con- 
verted into a temple to Hera (Nilsson, Gr. Rel. 12, 23 sqq.). With the 
difference of meaning cf. the 18 of the temple of El-Berith at 


Shechem (Judg. ix. 46, 49), used of an underground cavern or chamber 
in 1 Sam. xiii. 6, and in Nabatean inscriptions. Arabic distinguishes 


Cs 4 


between oe tower or citadel, and etek graye, etc. See 
/ ¢ 


further, G. F. Moore on Judges, and Driver on Samuel. At Nablus 
(Shechem) the Arabic darth is used of the holy place built over the 
remains of sundry prophets, sons of Jacob (Canaan, J POS, iv. 24). 

P. 200 sqqg. SacrED StongES.1—Sacred stones include (1) those 
that have been deliberately and artificially made holy (see below, 
p. 572), and (2) those that are already so, perhaps because they arouse 
awe (a sense of the ‘‘ numinous,” see p. 554), or because of some 
tradition which professes to explain their sanctity (see p. 206). Sacred 
stones need not be portraits, or representations of any part of the body 
(on phallic symbols, see p. 687 sq.); there is not necessarily any self- 
evident connexion between them and what they stand for (p. 210). 
Nor need they have any intrinsic worth, like precious stones. It is 
remarkable that the cult of sacred stones is found on high levels,? 
and that among lower races the Central Australian churinga is of no 
little ‘‘ spiritual value’? because of the meaning it has for the native.* 
Fetishism is not necessarily “‘ very savage and contemptible ”’ (p. 209 ; 
cf. Lagrange, 215). It is easy to understand why certain stones or 
stone objects have been endowed with sacred power, e.g. aerolites and 
flints ; and the black bituminous stones around Nebi Musa, before they 
are burnt on the fire, must first be addressed : “‘ Permission, O son of 
Imram, whose fire comes from his stones’ (Canaan, JPOS. v. 166),4 
Stones as fertility charms will owe their efficacy, as the ‘* Merchant of 
Harran’”’ recognized, to the faith of the believer (see p. 514 n. 2); 
and at the present day women who desire children will resort to stones 
famed forstheir power, e.g. the Hajar el-Hablah near Meirum,’ or they 


1 See Wellhausen, 101 sgq.; Lagrange, 197 sqq.; Moore, #.Bi. ‘‘ Massebah.” 

2 Cf. Moore, #.Bi. 2979, §2 and n. 9; Conybeare, Oxford Congress of Rel. ii. 
177 sqqg.; Frazer, FOT. ii. 73; and the oft-quoted modern example in A. C. 
Lyall’s Asiatic Studies (“‘ Religion of an Indian Province ”’). 

3 Marett, Ency. Brit. xxiii. 66a, citing Spencer and Gillen, Vative Tribes of 
Central Australia, 135, 165, Northern Tribes, 266. 

4 Prehistoric tools are sometimes treated as sacred on account of their obvious 
antiquity. 

5 Vincent, Canaan, 415 n, Cf. Badeker, Palest, 356; Frazer, FOT. ii. 75. 


COMMEMORATIVE STONES 569 


will visit an old Egyptian monument and scrape off a little of the sand- 
stone, which they drink with water (The Times, 2nd October 1926). 

As an object of cult the stone serves as a place where one can meet 
the god. When draped, carried about, hung with garments, it is 
virtually an idol (Wellh. 101 sq.). But instead of representing the god» 
a stone can be erected on behalf of a worshipper, and in this case it 
virtually represents him in the presence of the god. Among the 
Nabatzans the x13w1) seems to be, not so much the place of worship 
(cf. mesjid, ‘‘ mosque’’) as the vehicle: it is a stela or column dedi- 
cated to a deity ; but it may be shaped like an altar and may suggest 
an altar-table (Cooke, 238). When stones are set up by the childless, 
or as memorials of the worshipper, the desire to perpetuate the ‘““ name”’ 
suggests that it is the durability and permanence of the object which 
is the secret of the practice. It is on this account that the stone serves 
to commemorate; though, with W. R. S., it is questionable whether 
this is the true origin of stone-cults. 

In Josh. xxii. the original narrative must have been changed (“‘ an 
altar is a strange erection if it is only to be used as a monument’’); 
and it is more probable that a Transjordanic altar was preserved by 
devoting it to a more innocent purpose, and through this compromise 
the narrative succeeds in emphasizing the unity of worship.t_ In Gen. 
xxviii. 12-22 (Jacob at Bethel) Lagrange (205 and n. 2) well compares 
the Assyrian practice of anointing foundation tablets. But why 
were such memorial tablets anointed ? They bore the names of the 
founders; they must be anointed and sacrifices offered to them—to 
explain the ceremony as a mere act of commemoration seems in- 
adequate (see p. 582 sg.) Moreover, the circumstances in Gen. l.c. go to 
show that Jacob’s pillar was more than commemorative; the stone 
which was found to be sacred and was set up is a Massebah.? In Gen. 
xxxi. 44, the stone which commemorates the covenant between Jacob 
and Laban is regarded by Lagrange (206) as analogous to the Baby- 
lonian kudurrus or boundary stones. These stones bore the symbols 
of certain gods, who were not necessarily identical with those men- 
tioned in the accompanying inscription; but in any event, divine 
powers, through the presence of these stones, were expected to act 
as a protection against evil-doers. The covenant feast (v. 46) recalls 
Gen. xxvi. 30; and the witness is God (v. 50 E), or the cairn itself 
(v. 48 J). The latter view underlies the explanation of the name 


1 Kennett, Journal of Theol. Studies, 1905, p.175; cf. G. A. Cooke, Joshua, 210. 

2 See further Skinner, Gen. 377 sqqg. Meyer (Israel. 283 sqq.) argues that the 
Bethel stone was the ‘‘ rock of Israel,” and the “‘ steer of Jacob ” (Gen. xlix. 24) ; 
ef. Jer. ii. 27, Is. li. 1. W. R. S. is guarded (p. 210 n.), presumably because he 
distinguishes ‘‘ Israelite ” from ‘‘ Canaanite ” religion. 


570 STONE CULTS 


Gal‘éd (Gilead), and finds a parallel in Josh. xxiv. 27 (E), where the 
stone at Shechem is a witness. Cairns are still built as witnesses of 
vows (Curtiss, 79 sq.), and stones convey ideas of stability where oaths 
and covenants are concerned (Frazer, YO7'. ii. 403 sqq.). Stones are 
piled up as a “ witness’”’ or “‘ confirmation”? by the modern pilgrim 
when he prays, and on the Day of Judgment such stones will be among 
the testimonies to his piety (J POS. iv. 75 sq.). 

But even “‘ commemorative”” monuments readily have a sacred 
meaning, and they were condemned by the Puritan Wahhabites.’ 
The massebah on the border of Egypt (Is. xix. 19) was, as Gray con- 
jectured, perhaps an inscribed obelisk celebrating Yahweh's deeds. 
Boundaries were sacred, and Senusret (Sesostris) 1. set up his statue 
at the boundary of Egypt that the people “ might prosper because 
of it’ (Breasted, i. § 660; cf. CAH. ii. 344). The treaty between 
Eannatum and the king of Lagash was commemorated by the “ Stela 
of the Vultures” which was set up to mark the boundary ; it refers 
to the frontier shrines (7.e. presumably to the gods who were invoked 
to preserve the treaty), and the two kings took a solemn oath to respect 
the frontier, probably at the altars of the gods invoked.’ 

Sacred stones, rocks, and mountains seem to have been more 
prominent in the old Israelite religion than is commonly recognized 
(Meyer, Israel. 473); and with Lagrange (192 sq.) and Baudissin 
(ZDMG. 1903, p. 829) it is tempting to associate the Babylonian 
zikkurat towers and the cult of conical stones with the sanctity of 
mountains. Elagabalus of mesa, then, may be the “deified mountain ”’ 
(cf. Lagrange, 82 n.); and although Néldeke has objected (see ZDMG. 
1903, p. 817) that ‘‘ Gebal”’ is too specifically an Arabic word, he 
himself attributes to the Arab-speaking Nabatewans the name of 
Gebal which was given to Mt. Seir (#.Bs. 1654), and in view of the 
constant movement of Arab tribes in Transjordania and the Arab 
connexions of the dynasty of EKmesa the appearance of an El(a)-gabal 
is not difficult to explain. Further, since Mt. Seir is otherwise called 
‘* field of Edom,” where “ field ” (sddeh), as in several other places in 
the O.T., should mean “ mountain,” like the Bab. shadu (Burney, 
Judges, 111 sq.), it would appear that Gebal as a name for Edom corre- 
sponds to the earlier sddeh.* 

In general, the various sorts of sacred stones, as also the meanings 
attached to them, easily shade off into one another (cf. Lagrange, 201, 


1 Hogarth, Penetration of Arabia, 73; G. B. Gray on Isa, xix. 19 (p. 338). 

2L. W. King, Sumer and Akkad, 127 sqq.; cf. CAH. i.? 380. 

3 Delitszch’s suggestion that the admittedly obscure title El Shaddai goes back 
to a ‘‘ god-mountain”’ should perhaps be reconsidered. ‘‘ Great mountain ’’ 
(shadu rabu) is a title of Bel and Asshur; KAT’, 355, 358, 


RITUAL CONTACT 571 


203). The stone can be an altar (cf. Wellhausen, 141) and at the same 
time a god, as in the stone at Duma (above, p. 205) and in Zeus bémos 
(Cook, Zeus, i. 520 sq.). Gods are readily identified with their em- 
bodiments, vehicles, or symbols (p. 562), and even the merely ‘‘ com- 
memorative ’’ stone can have a deep religious value. In such circum- 
stances, what is absolutely primary and what secondary in the history 
of sacred stones can hardly be determined by reliance upon the dates 
of our evidence (against Lagrange, 207 sq.), especially when the evidence 
comes in turn from early Babylonia, the O.T., Herodotus, and Arab 
heathenism. Nor can one rely upon any preliminary distinction 
between the cults of savages and of civilized peoples (1d. 215 sq.). 
The inanimate stone differs from the plant and more especially from 
the animal in that it does not in itself suggest, shape, or direct natural 
ideas of sacred life in the way that these can. It is on this account the 
more apt to be made the convenient centre of ideas from the vaguest 
to the most profound, and at different stages of culture. True, the 
stone has a certain permanence, the mountain points to the sky, or 
the environment of the sacred object awakens a sense of the sublime ; 
but by its very nature it stands outside the course of religious develop- 
ment and the growth of ideas of personality, human and divine. That 
sacred stones have bulked so largely in religion makes it all the 
more necessary to distinguish between a classification of the data of 
religion and the criteria by which the development of religion may 
be estimated. ’ 

P. 205. Rrres or TOUCHING, STROKING, ETC.—Such rites, for the 
purpose of acquiring or of transferring sanctity, have naturally a 
certain psychological significance, whether or no they include the 
special application of blood, oil, wine, fat, or anything supposed to 
contain some inherent efficacy. On taboos against touching sacred 
persons or things, see Frazer, GB. iii. 131 sqq. ; on charming by means 
of stroking, see E. Riess, Amer. Journ. of Philol., 1925, pp. 226 sqq., 
and for a typical Mohammedan custom, above, p. 461. On touching 
or pressing against the black stone at Mecca, see Wellhausen, 109, 
Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 209.1 For kissing (1 Kings xix. 18; 
Hos. xiii. 2), cf. the kissing of the threshold and door-posts of churches 
in Abyssinia (Barton, Sem. Origins, 137). In an alignment of stones 
unearthed at Gezer, in what was evidently a sacred area, was one 
with small polished spots such as are still to be observed on the stones 
visited and kissed by pilgrims (R. A. 8. Macalister, Gezer, ii. 388). 
On bodily contact with a teacher in order to acquire some of his 

1 The orthodox Palestinian Jew at the wall of Jerusalem presses against what 


is traditionally regarded as part of Solomon’s temple (Jastrow, Rel. Beliefs, 266 
n, 3). 


572 CONSECRATION, DIVINIZATION 


knowledge, see the Rabbinical and other data by Hiseler, Arch. f. 
Rel., 1914, p. 666; Kreglinger, 87 sg. In Syria men will touch a 
saint’s tomb with their hand, and then wipe it over their face (A. 8. 
Tritton, private communication), or they will rub the oil of the lamps 
over their hands and face (Canaan, J POS. v. 177 sq.). Further, when 
a sacrifice is offered, he for whom it is made must come into contact 
with it, e.g. he must be marked with the blood of the victim. Or a 
man will smear a shrine in order to assure the saint that the sacrifice 
is made on his behalf (J POS. vi. 48). The necessity of some physical 
or material accessory finds a curious illustration when the church of 
St. George, near Beit Jala, was connected by a wire with the hospital 
where the mental patients were kept, in order that the saint’s healing 
power might be transmitted to the unfortunate inmates (v. 202). 

P. 206. ConsEcRATION, DIVINIZATION.—As distinct from inani- 
mate or animate things already (naturally) sacred are those which 
are ceremonially made so; and W. R. 8. argues that the stage where 
an object already sacred is sacrificed to a god is prior to that where 
it is selected and sanctified for the purpose (p. 390). This view is 
rejected by Hubert and Mauss who, in their important monograph 
on sacrifice (cf. also Toy, § 1049), are more concerned with demon- 
strating the stage of “‘ divinization”’ which W. R. 8S. considers secondary. 
For examples of divinization, see W. Crooke, “The Binding of the 
God,” Folk-lore, viii. 325-355 (on the practices whereby gods are 
caused to enter into images); Hartland, Ritwal and Belief, 55 (super- 
natural powers transferred by means of feathers); Cumont, Oriental 
Religions in Roman Paganism, ch. iv. n. 61. 

In both Egypt and Babylonia there were rites whereby the images 
became inhabited by their respective gods.‘ In the daily ritual of 
the Egyptian temple the priest presented to the image of the deity 
the image of Ma‘at, goddess of truth, right, etc., whereby it became, 
so to say, “ truly and rightly’ a god, and no longer a mere image 
(cf. CAH. i.* 346).2 Such practices recall the story that Brahma 
taught a king how to restore a dead boy by painting a portrait, and 
then endowing it with life. Mohammedan thought is more explicit 
when the prohibition of making images is justified on the ground 


1 Rameses 11. speaks of having performed such a rite (Breasted, Anc. Ree. iii. 
p. 179 note c). 

2On the ceremony of “opening the mouth,” see Blackman, Journ. of Eq. 
Arch. x. 47 sqq. (Bab.), 53 sqq. (Egypt); Zimmern, in the Néldeke-Festschrift, 
959 sqq.; Sidney Smith, Journ. of Royal Asiatic Soc., 1925, pp. 37 sqq.; H. Bonnet, 
Angelos, 1925, pp. 103 sqgg. On a ceremonial opening of the mouth as a sign that 
a man initiated into a sacred office has become fully ordained, see the West African 
example in Frazer, GB. v. 68. 


9 


RITES OF CONSECRATION 573 


that it is a sacrilegious assumption of the creative function of Allah, 
who alone possesses the life-giving breath.! Creation consists in the 
manufacture of the mould and the gift of life by blowing breath into 
the nostrils (cf. p. 555); and the Arab conviction reads as the echo 
of a monotheistic condemnation, which orthodox Jews would have 
shared, of the older practice of making gods. 

In rites of consecration blood was especially used as a vehicle of 
life, if not as the life itself. Blood makes a stone holy; it brings 
divine life into it (p. 436 above). An Abraxas papyrus speaks of the 
strangling of birds before an idol of Eros in order to endow it with 
life (Class. Review, 1896, p. 409). ‘Primitive man feels the need of 
some instrument or vehicle as an embodiment of a “ spirit,’ and 
instead of an image a corpse can serve (Halliday, Greek Divination, 
243 sqg.). A sacred or powerful man may be put to death in order 
that his spiritual presence shall benefit a district (cf. Hartland, 
Folk-lore, xxi. 176 sq.); and in the days of the Greek emigrations, 
“it became the established custom for the leader of a new pioneering 
enterprise to be buried in the market-place of the colony and honoured 
after death as its protecting hero” (Nilsson, 236). Between the 
utilization, the reinvigoration, and the construction of an abode for 
a powerful spirit it is not easy to draw the line, and W. R. S. and 
MM. Hubert and Mauss are really looking at different parts of the 
process: the latter made a most important contribution to certain 
types and uses of sacrifice, but the former goes to the more funda- 
mental problem, why there is a desire to establish—or re-establish— 
communication with the “ sacred ”’ realm. 

P, 210 n. 1.—The letters to the Scotsman are reprinted in Lectures 
and Hssays (ed. J. S. Black and G. W. Chrystal), see 7b. p. 544, and 
cf. p. 554. 

P. 211 n. 1.—The verse cited by Wellhausen!, 99, reads: “* At 
a time when female children were not suffered to live, and when 
the people used to stand motionless by the sacred stones, round the 
mudawwar.’ The mudawwar is said to mean “ an image which they 
used to circumambulate.”” ‘The verse appears in the Nacd@ id, p. 950 
1. 3 (ed. Bevan, Leiden, 1905).—A. A. B. 

Pp. 214, 216, and 237 n.—On the terms “ sacrifice’’ and “ offering ”’ 
(Luther, schlacht- and speise-opfer), etc., see Moore, H.Bi. ** Sacrifice,” 
§ 11; Driver, Hastings’ Dict. Bible, s.v. ‘‘ Offer(ing), Oblation ” ; 
G. Buchanan Gray, Sacrifice in the O.T., 4 sqqg. On the derivation 
of minhah (M19 “‘ give,” or AN) a ritual S. Arab. term), see Lagrange, 

1Sir T. W. Arnold, Survivals of Sasanian and Manichaean Art in Persian 


Painting, 4 (Oxford, 1924); Wensinck, ‘“‘ The Second Commandment,” Mede- 
deelingen of the Amsterdam University, lvii, A No. 6 (1925). 


574 BIBLICAL CRITICISM 


256 n., 269 n.; Hartmann, Islam. Orient, 208 n. 1; Gray, 14 sqq. ; 
Hommel, Hthnol. wu. Geog. d. Alt. Orients, 144, 162; and Dussaud, Les 
Origines Cananéennes du Sacrifice Israélite, 89 sqq. 

P. 215 n.—Wellhausen’s article ‘‘ Pentateuch,” famous in the annals 
of O.T. criticism, was reprinted in #.Bi. “‘ Hexateuch”’ (with addi- 
tions by Cheyne on later developments). Of subsequent tendencies 
(a) some (Kennett in Journ. of Theol. Stud., 1905 sq., Hélscher, etc.) 
place Deuteronomy in its present form after the seventh century B.C. 
(b) Others (Kosters, Torrey, etc.) reconstruct the history both of 
the Return from Exile (holding that there was no considerable return 
in the time of Zerubbabel) and of the work of Nehemiah and Ezra 
(in that order, the value of the account of Ezra being also open to 
doubt). Further (c), more attention is paid to the early elements 
in the law and ritual, especially in view of the antiquity of culture.in 
Palestine centuries before the age of Moses. This latter fact, however, 
does not affect the problem of the approximate dates when the con- 
stituent sources of the Hexateuch and the Historical Books reached 
their present form, and for what purposes they were written down 
and combined. Since W. R. S. lays emphasis upon the archaic or 
primitive features of the priestly ritual, it is to be observed that, 
whereas on the “ literary-¢ritical”* théory these Rppess in documents 
which are admittedly quite late (post-exilic), on the ‘‘ conservative ”’ 

r ‘‘ traditional’’ view they are in documents of many centuries 
earlier, and the spiritual and ethical reforming movements of the 
great prophets did not prevent their persistence, survival, or re- 
emergence, and their prominence in post-exilic Judaism. Archaic 
and _even crude features recur in _Syria_ and Palestine in _ much 
beginning of a Christian era; cf. the cults associated with 
Elagabalus and Emesa, and see also Cumont, Oriental Religions 
in Roman Paganism (Chicago, 1911). Conversely, relatively high 

j/ideas can be traced, not only among the neighbours of the 
Israelites outside Palestine, but also in Palestine before the age of 
the Israelite invasion and among the Canaanites amid whom the 
Israelites settled. 

P. 218. For the camel as food, Stiibe refers to Imrulcais, Moail. 
vv. 10-12. <A particularly minute description of the slaughter of a 
camel for food is to be found in a poem of ‘Amr ibn al-Ahtam (Mufad- 
daliyat, ed. Thorbecke, Poem xii. verses 12 sy., Poem xxiii. in Lyall’s 
edition).—A. A. B. 

P. 220. WinE anD Ecstasy.—Certain abnormal states have readily 
been regarded as supernormal, and all that took a man out of himself 
was often supposed to take him into a supersensuous or sacred realm, 


WINE AND ECSTASY 575 


There have been many ways of producing the state: music, intona- 
tion, and also awe-inspiring noises, notably the bull-roarer ; ! dancing 
and dreamy rhythmic movement (cf. below, p. 671 sq.) ; tobacco and the 
inhalation of smoke ; eating of leaves (hashish, ivy, etc.); drinking 
of blood, of wine and other intoxicating liquors. The sacred drink, 
“sacred” because it is interpreted as bringing one under the influence 
of or into the sphere of the supersensuous, will owe its discovery to 
a god (Osiris, Dionysus).2 The Indian soma was itself deified ; it 
conferred immortality upon gods and men, and its appellation amrita, 
“immortal,” is the ambrosia of the Greek gods. Among other famous 
drinks in religion are the kava ceremonial of the South Seas (Folk-lore, 
xxxill. 60) and the Mexican peyote (see Radin, Crashing Thunder, 
169 sqq.). In Babylonia wine is ideographically the ‘‘ food (or staff) 
of life’ (KAT. 526). 

The opposition to wine in Gen. ix. 18 sqq. is to be read in the light 
of Lamech’s oracle on the birth of Noah (v. 29), where wine is a relief 
from the curse of labour ; it ‘“‘ expresses the healthy recoil of primitive 
Semitic morality from the licentious habits engendered by a civiliza- 
tion of which a salient feature was the use and abuse of wine” 
(Skinner, Genesis, 185 sqq., cf. 133 sq.). For restrictions on the use 
of wine in religion, see, besides pp. 220 n. 5 and 485 above, Gray, 
Numbers, 62 sq., and Jastrow, Journ. of Amer. Or. Soc. xxxiii. 180 sqq. 
The Egyptians abstained from wine because, on one view, it was the 
blood, not of the gods, but of the enemies of the gqds. Among the 
Aztecs the native pulque was denounced because of the evils done 
by men under its influence; though, as they were supposed to be 
possessed and inspired by the wine-god, such men were not to be 
punished (Frazer, GB. iii. 249 sq.).2 Analogous is the belief that 
mentally abnormal men are—within certain limits—sacred (Canaan, 
JPOS. vi. 10). Among the teetotal gods is the Nabatzan She‘alkium 
(aripbayw ; in Safa inscriptions ppnyr’), t.e. the “ protector of the 
people,’ who is described as the “ good and bountiful god who does 
not drink wine” (aon Nnw NOT NID Nav). Interpreting this as 
a protest against the cult of Dusares-Dionysus, Clermont-Ganneau 
recalls the legendary ‘‘ anti-Bacchic”’ god or king Lycurgus who 


1 Marett, Threshold of Rel. 156 sg. For singing (carmen=charm), cf. Gilbert 
Murray, Anthropology and the Classics, 96, 105. 

2 On the “immortality of drunkenness,” see further Frazer, GB. i. 378 sqq., 
iii. 248 sqq., v. 52 sq.; also FOT, iii. 344 sqg.; Hélscher, Die Profeten, 11 sq.; and 
in general, Kircher, Die sakrale Bedeutung des Weines 1m Altertum (Giessen, 1910) 
J.W. Hauer, Die Religionen (Tiibingen, 1923), i. 69, 72 sqq. 

3 Similarly, crimes committed by the sacred men of the Gold Coast when in a 
state of frenzy used to go unpunished (@B. v. 68 sq.). 


576 HONEY : SEETHING THE KID 


strove with Dionysus in Arabia.t In general, the recognition of the 
difference between the means of producing exhilaration, ecstsay, 
and all else that was felt to be sacred, if not sacramental, and the 
social, ethical, or other consequences of the means employed, is of 
fundamental importance for the vicissitudes of religion. 

P. 221. Honry.—Honey was used at Harran (Chwolson, ii. 195, 
230 sq.), in Greek cultus (Eitrem, 102 sq.), Egypt (Jowrn. of Manch. 
Eg. and Or. Soc., 1926, p. 15), and in Babylonia (milk and honey used 
in the dedication of a new image).? For the explanation of the state- 
ment of Theophrastus (Porph. de Abstin. ii. 26) that much honey 
was used at a certain rite by the Jews (sic, Idumeans ?), see Biichler, 
ZATW. 1902, pp. 206 sqg. Honey was forbidden in sacrifices to 
‘* Beelefarus’”’ (Lafaye, Rev. de Hist. des Rel., 1888, i. 218 sqq. ; 
Dussaud, Sacrifice, 261, 324). Milk and honey are apotropaic 
(Hitrem, 103), divine, and the typical food of the future Golden Age ; 
cf. the heavenly honey and kine of Iranian mythology, and the curds 
and honey of the infant Zeus. In the Odes of Solomon (iv. 7) they 
are God’s blessings for the faithful. For honey as an intoxicant, see 
A. B. Cook, Zews, ii. 1027 1. 5, and as a special offering to chthonian 
powers, 7b. 1142 and n. 4. On milk in mystical rejuvenating and 
other rites, see Moore, H.B2. |.c., EKitrem, 101, 457. 

P. 221 n. SeerHine THE Kip.—This much-discussed prohibition 
has, from Maimonides and St. Thomas Aquinas onward, been commonly 
explained as directed against some Canaanite or, more particularly, 
Dionysian rite.* There is elsewhere a singular compassionateness, 
and a sentiment against brutality or even unseemliness (Lev. xxii. 28, 
parent and young not to be killed on the same day); and Andrew 
Lang (Man, 1907, No. 103), in this connexion, refers to the law of 
the bird’s nest (Deut. xxii. 6 sg.).6 As often with taboos, much that 
might be considered only undesirable is apt to be combined with much 
that could justly be condemned or deprecated on entirely rational 
or utilitarian grounds. But even benevolent and humanitarian 
injunctions will have their supernatural or religious aspect or origin ; 
e.g. the harvest law in Deut. xxiv. 19 (see Von Gall, ZATW. xxx. 96; 

1 Cooke, No. 140 B; Clermont-Ganneau, Rec. iv. 384 sq., 393 sgq.; Lagrange, 
507; Lidzb., Lphem. i. 345 sq. 

2 KAT. 526; Zimmern, Wéldeke-Festschrift, 962 n. 1; Gray, Sacrifice, 27 ; 
Moore, £.B2. col. 4193, n. 1. 

3See Usener, Rhein. Mus. lvii. 177-192; Stade, ZATW. 1902, p. 321 sq. ; 
Guidi, Rev. Bibl., 1903, pp. 241 sgq., and the discussions in the ZDPV. 1902-12 

assum. 
J # Reinach (Cultes, etc., ii. 123) thinks of Dionysus Eriphus, and Radin (AJSZ. 
1924, p. 209) finds a trace of the cult at Raphia. See’also ERE. ix. 905d. 
5 Cf. also Marett, Psychology and Folklore, 140, 


INAUGURAL RITES 577 


Sir G. A. Smith, Deut. ad loc.). Among pastoral tribes in Africa 
there is a disinclination to boil milk: to do so would react harmfully 
upon the animals that yield it. Among the Beja tribes milk is some- 
thing “* sacrosanct” and not ‘‘ common,” and should not be mixed with 
meat.t Milk enters into rites of initiation and rebirth (where the 
** new-born” drinks milk), and essential foods are commonly bound 
up with religious rites and taboos. Accordingly, the prohibition 
will range between the denunciation of so monstrous an act as to 
cook a kid in what is, as it were, its own blood (Calvin; see G. A. 
Smith), and the avoidance of a specific mystical rite which conveyed 
a definite meaning to the participants.” 

P. 221 n. 3. HitttLim.—W. R. 8. disputes the suggested connexion 
with the new moon (p. 432), and Jastrow (Rel. Beliefs, 214, 336), 
apropos of Bab., Arab, and Jewish ritual at the celebration of the 
new moon, suggests that the meaning of the word is “‘ joy” (cf. 
above, /.c.). But it is possible that the root meaning is that of in- 
augurating or beginning. The Arabic halla is used of bursting forth, 
of breaking out into crying, of the child’s first cry, of the new moon 
beginning to shine.* It thus denotes some commencement, cf. tahlil 
as a consecration (p. 279 n. 5 above); and it is unnecessary, with 
Morgenstern, to read hillil in Leviticus and Judges, although the 
ceremony in each case no doubt marks the transition from the “‘ sacred” 
to the “ profane.” * On the importance of appropriate formulas or 
ceremonies when certain actions are done for the first time, see Wester- 
marck, Morocco, i. 205 (the saying attributed to Mohammed, “ Every 
matter of importance which is begun without mention of God is 
maimed ’’), 304 (water from a spring), ii. 6 sq., 244 (the first corn 
fetched from the granary), etc., cf. the bismillah above, p. 432 
n,.1,:L.4. 

P. 222. Zipau.—The Arabic root is still used of cutting the throat, 
e.g. at Aden, of a man still alive: ‘‘ Have you seen the man with his 


throat cut ?”’ (- r dal|).5 In Assyrian the word, though less common, 


is used loosely of an offering (KAT. 595 n. 4), and in Neo-Punic 
dedications the verb seems to mean ‘‘ to offer or dedicate.” In 


1 Frazer, FOT. iii. 117 sqq., 163; A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 676; C. G. Seliginan, 
JRAI. xiii. 654 sqq. The Bahimas boil milk only as a solemn rite on certain 
occasions (J. Roscoe, The Baganda, 418). 

2N. Schmidt (JBL. xly. 278 n.) conjectures that the rite was originally a 
fertility one. 

3 Wellhausen!, 108 sq.,2110 n. 3; see Lagarde, Orientalia, ii. 19. 

4 Journ. of Amer. Orient. Soc. xxxvi. 328 sq. On the meaning of the root 
halla, see p. 482 above. 

5 A,S. Tritton: private communication. 


37 


578 FOOD-GODS 


Assyrian ntki “ drink offering ’’ has similarly come to have a general 
meaning, as also has nasaka in Arabic (p. 229 above; Wellh. 118 
n.1; Gray, Sacrifice, 401 n. 5). 

P. 222 n.—For S-d cf. the name Sidon, explained as “ fish- 
town’ (Justin, xviii. 3, etc.), and its occurrence apparently as a 
divine name or title in Pheenician names (S-d—Tanith, $-d—Melkart, 
S-d—Yathon, etc. Clermont-Ganneau conjectures that S-d was the 
Baal of Lebanon, Adonis (Rec. i. 189 sgqg.). Meyer (#.Bt. “ Phoenicia,” 
§ 12) maintains the old view that Sid (as he writes it) is Philo’s “Aypevs, 
the hunter, or his brother ‘“A\cevs, the fisher (cf. Lagrange, 417). At 
all events, a food-deity seems to recur in Dagon (Dagan), which in 
place-names is not confined to the old Philistine area, and in personal 
names is found in South Palestine (Dagan-takala, Amarna Letters, 
c. 1400), and in other West Semitic names, the god himself standing 
by the side of Anu.’ The man-fish is found on coins of Arvad and 
Askalon (cf. the earlier Assyrian Ea-Oannes), but in spite of the 
Hebrew dag (fish) there is no old evidence that Dagon was a fish-god 
rather than one of corn (ddgdn). Words for food easily admit 
of differentiation or are used interchangeably, and S-d. (fish or 
game) and JD-g-n (fish or corn) would find analogies in the 
Arabic lahma, flesh or meat, and Heb. lehem, bread, but also food 
of men, ants (Prov. vi. 8) and asses (Job xxiv. 5), and sacrificia] 
meat (Lev. iii. 11).? 

P. 225 n. 3.—Noldeke (ZRH. i. 666 col. 1) agrees with Well- 
hausen (121 n. 1) that these birds were vultures. On the sacred doves 
at Mecca, see Kinship, 229 and n. 1. 

P. 226. Eayprian Totremism.—With this guarded statement, 
cf. p. 301 sg. In pre-dynastic Egypt each tribal god was “ the articu- 
late expression of the inner cohesion and of the outward independence 
of the tribe itself, but who outwardly manifested himself in the form 
of some animal or took up his abode in some fetish of wood or stone ” 
(A. H. Gardiner, Hncy. Brit. ix. 49 sq.). According to Peet, a large 
number of Egyptian gods were “‘ probably totemic in origin,” e.g. 
the ibis Thoth, the jackal (?) Anubis, the crocodile Sebek, the falcon 
Horus. But by the side of these were nature gods. “In pre- 
dynastic Egypt the tribes had each its totem animal or plant, and 
the theory that Egypt passed through a true totemic stage might 
explain why the Pharaoh is represented as a bull, lion, scorpion, or 
hawk.” ‘“‘ In historical times the true totemic stage has passed 

1See especially Burney, Judges, 385 sq., who compares, inter alia, Ceres and 
Cerealia. 


2The Assyrian deities of the Creation Myth, Lahmu and Lahamu (the A«xi 
xa) Axxéy of Damascius, reading A for 4), are of other origin. 


EGYPTIAN TOTEMISM 579 


away and we are left with the worship of a god in human form with 
the head of the totem animal, while the domestication and sacrifice 
of animals, together with the sacredness of the whole totem species, 
still remains to testify to the origin of the system (CAH. i.? 246, 328). 
Seligman (JRAI. xliii. 653, 681 sq.) considers that the Egyptians 
were totemistic, and certainly given to animal cults. On the other 
side, see Foucart, Hist. des Religions (1913), 62 sqq., and E. Meyer 
(Gesch. Alt. i. § 183), the latter of whom makes important remarks 
on the sanctity of the whole animal species.1 See in general Wiede- 
mann, Tierkult d. alten Agypter (‘‘ Der alte Orient”’ series, xiv. 1912); 
T. Hopfner, in the Denkschriften of the Vienna Royal Academy, 
lvii. pt. ii. 328 sy.; Gressmann, Vortrdge d. Bibliothek Warburg, iii. 
(1923-24) 179 sqq. (on the psychological aspect of Egyptian animal 
cults); and the critical survey by A. van Gennep, L’ Etat actuel du 
Probléme Totémique, 179 sqq. 

P, 226 n. 3.—For the vulture, see Wellhausen, 23. F.C. Burkitt 
(Journ. Theol. Stud. xxv. 403) would read Dushara in Abodah Zarah, 
116, and Addai (Phillips, 24) in the place of the rare Nashra. In any 
event, Wellhausen (/.c.) cites a Syriac name meaning “‘ Nashr-gave ” ; 
and, as for Arab cults in Syria, according to Isaac of Antioch (Bickell, 
xi. 97 sg.) the men of Harran, along with the Arabs, worshipped 
Uzza, and an Arab cult can also probably be recognized at Homs 
(Emesa); see above, p. 570. On the eagle cult in Syria, see Dussaud, 
Notes de Mythol. Syr. (1903), § 3. s 

P. 228 n.—It is not clear to what “ scholiast’”? W. R. 8. refers 
in line 7. Perhaps he had before him the explanation of the verse 
in question in the Lisdn, vi. 211, 7. But the commentary on the. 
same verse in the Mo‘aliacat (ed. Arnold, p. 186) says “ one sheep 
in each ten.” This explanation, with a slight variation, is given also 
in Lyall’s edition with the commentary of Tibrizi, p. 136, 12 sq. It 
is difficult to see why Stiibe (p. 172 n. 346), in his translation, speaks 
of the “ sacrifice of an old beast.” In his translation of p. 368 n. 1 
(p. 281 n. 626) he explains fara’ (firstling) as Wuldesel, evidently 
a confusion with fara’ (Heb. pére’). On the sacrificing of firstlings 
among the heathen Arabs, cf. also Poems of ‘Amr son of Qamvah, ed. 
Lyall (Cambridge, 1919), p. 21, note on verse 9.—A. A. B. 

P. 230 n. 2.—In Ecclus. xxxix. 26 the Hebrew version has 33) p74 
(in Gen. xlix. 11, p’a3y O17). In |. 15 it is wanting. For Arab 
parallels see Jacob, Studien, iv. (1897) 6 sg.; and for the “ blood ”’ 


1 Just as the divine kingship is maintained, in that every king on his death 
is replaced by another, so on the death of any of the sacred species the divine 
spirit is found in another, which is recognized by definite marks, and takes its 
place as the sacred animal. 


580 LIBATIONS 


of trees, see Frazer, GB. ii. 20, iii. 248. For the “ juice” of grapes= 
blood, cf. Isa. lxiii. 3 (nésah). 

P. 230 n. 4.—Sacrifices were offered to Ishtar on the roofs (Morgen- 
stern, 110 sq., 143); they consisted of cakes (kamdnu, see H.Bi1. col. 
3992) and bread. Isaac of Antioch tells of the women who, to increase 
their beauty, went upon the roofs and made offerings to the stars 
(Bickell, p. 240, 1. 439). An inscription from Petra (CIS. ii. 354) 
may refer to a family god set up on the roof (n\ny) of a house (see 
Cooke, 245; Clermont-Ganneau, Rec. ii. 370 sqq., iv. 338, v. 290). See 
generally, on roof cults, Frazer, Pausanias, ii. 165; Boissier, PSBA. 
1901, p. 118 sqg.; and H. J. Rose, Folk-lore, xxxiii. 34 sqy., 200. 

P. 231. Lrpations or WatER.—That of David (2 Sam. xxiii. 16 sq.) 
explains itself ; the water brought at such risk is too sacred to drink. 
Samuel’s libation at the solemn convention at Mizpah (1 Sam. vii. 6) 
is accompanied with fasting, confession, and invocation, and Yahweh’s 
thunder discomfits the Philistines (cf. the earthquake in 1 Sam. xiv. 
15). The libation is generally interpreted as a pouring away of 
sin, though this is hardly suggested by the context (Gray, Sacrifice, 
400 sq.). But libations are also made at graves as an act of piety, 
or more specifically in order to refresh the dead. The dead are 
thirsty (see p. 235), the liquid disappears into the ground, whereas 
dry food would be carried away by animals. On Egyptian monu- 
ments the prayer of the dead is for water; and in Babylonia he who 
is properly buried “‘ rests on a couch and drinks pure waters,” whereas 
he whose shade has no rest eats of the pickings of the pot and the 
food thrown into the street (Jastrow, Rel. Beliefs, 358 sq.). At the 
present day it is sometimes believed that the soul of the dead visits 
the tomb every Friday in the hope of finding water, or water is placed 
in the cup-like holes, and the birds which drink of it will testify to 
the merits of the dead (JPOS. iv. 27). See further Goldziher, Arch. 
f. Rel. xiii. 45 sg. (post-Biblical and Mohammedan evidence) ; 
Baudissin, 437 n. 3; and Torge, Seelen u. Unsterblichkeitshoffnung, 
134 sg. (on 1 Sam. vii.). . 

P. 231. Rarn-CHarms (cf. p. 211).—On the Feast of Tabernacles, 
see H.Bi. “‘ Sacrifice,’ §36; ‘‘ Tabernacles,” §7; Loisy, Sacrifice, 
210; J. de Groot, T'heolog. Tijd. 1918, pp. 38 sqqg. Thackeray (The 
Septuagint and Jewish Origins, 61 sqq.) observes that ‘* with a solemn 
public disclaimer of sun-worship the ceremony ended at cock-crow,” 
v.e. the rising sun at the autumnal equinox. On the rite at Hierapolis 
and the various parallels, see Revue des Etudes Juives, xxxvi. 317, 
xliii. 195; Lagrange, 166 sq. (who distinguishes the libation as a rain- 
charm from the “‘ descent’ of images to the water in order to purify 
them); and Rieger, JQR. 1926, Jan., 232. According to Mariti, 


RAIN-CHARMS 581 


the Tyrian ritual (see p. 232 n. 3) is called the marriage of the sea 
water to the land water; he places the rite in October. On p. 231 
n. 3, see, besides Wellhausen, 167 (who compares the Roman custom, 
Ovid, iv. 681 sqq.), Goldziher, Muh. Stud. i. 35, and Burney’s dis- 
cussion (Judges, 393 sq.).1 

In the island of Imbros a prayer for the fertilizing dew is accom- 
panied with a recitation of the Baptism of Christ, wherein St. John 
is the bestower of the life-giving dew. In Palestine Christians, Jews, 
and Mohammedans take part in processions for rain (Qy. Sf. 1893, 
p- 218; ZDPYV. vii. 94, No. 86). A puppet is often carried, and 
doggerel rhymes are sung to the Umm el-Ghéth, the “‘ mother of 
rain’ (Qy. St. 1925, p. 37). Father Antonin Jaussen denies that in 
Moab the puppet ‘arts is called the ‘“‘ bride of Allah’ (so Curtiss, 
119), and Canaan (JPOS. vi. 144) could’ not verify the term “ half 
(nasf) bride’ which Jaussen heard in the Negeb. Intelligent opinion, 
at all events, repudiated the idea of a “ bride of Allah” as a rain- 
maker, and no clear tradition seems to have survived.? At ‘En 
Karim a cock is carried round and pinched in order that its cries for 
rain may be added to the rest.‘ In these ceremonies the head man 
will sprinkle the crowd with a little water, lack of rain is attributed 
to the sins of the elders or of specified families, while the younger 
people protest their own innocence.’ In bad cases of drought the 
Imam proclaims a fast, even babes are not allowed to suckle; the 
people put on their worst rags, they forgive one another and implore 
divine forgiveness (J POS. vi. 157). 

In prayers for rain not all shrines are equally effective, and in 
Rabbinical Judaism only men of outstanding merit were rain-makers. 
Among them were Honi (Onias) and Nikodemos ben Gorion. The 
former of these, it has been said, “‘ reminds one of a magician or & 
heathen priest praying for rain.’ A third, Joshua ben Levi, was 


1 An exploit like Samson’s in Judg. xv. 3-5 is not always a mythological 
trait, it is also a device to destroy crops so that invaders should not feed on 
the district ; see Hartmann, ZATW. xxxi. 69 sqq., and Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 
La Syrie a V Epoque des Mamelouks, 262 sq. 

2 Jane Harrison, Themis, 17. 

3 There is said to be also an Abi l-Ghéth (J POS. vi. 152 n. 5). 

4On the cock in rain-charms, see Gressmann, Marti-Festschrift, 88 sqq. In 
Morocco children are pinched, their tears acting as a rain-charm (Westermarck, 
Morocco, ii. 265). For weeping as a rain-charm, see GB. vii. 248, viii. 91. 

5 JPOS. vi. 150. For sprinkling as a “survival” of drowning a victim, cf. 
GB. i. 277 sq.; Westermarck, op. cit. 262 sq. The sacrifice of a human victim 
in order to procure rain is known to the Gemara on Abodah Zarah (iv. 7, f.55a), 
and is explained on the lines of Deut. iv. 196 and Prov. iii. 34. On human sacrifice 
for rain, see also Mader, 32. 


582 ANOINTING OIL 


(4 


successful only in his own town; and where the “ merits” of the 
congregation did not deserve it, even his prayer would be unavailing.* 
As regards the story of Elijah at Mount Carmel, the Phcenician refer- 
ence (in Menander) to the removal of the drought by the prayers of 
Ethbaal (the father-in-law of Ahab) suggests that the original Israelite 
version emphasized the tradition that it was not the priest-king of 
Astarte, but Elijah the servant of Yahweh who was the real rain- 
maker (CAH. iii. 369 sq.). Rameses 11., when his sacrifices are accepted 
by the god, is supposed to be able to give rain to the Hatti or Hittites 
(Breasted, Rec. iii. § 426); and it is through Israel and because of 
Israel that the earth has sunshine and rain (Marmorstein, 129). 
Hence it is in accordance with the prevailing ideas that (a) drought 
is the result of such offences as the failure to rebuild the Temple 
(Hag. i.), or to make the accustomed offerings (Mal. ii. 10), or to keep 
the Feast of Tabernacles (Zech. xiv. 16 sq.), and (b) that the Temple 
with its round of festivals has an almost ‘ magical’? power. Nature, 
and in particular rain, can be controlled either by special gods or by 
special men or organizations (whether through their influence with 
the gods or in their own right), and the manner in which the funda- 
mental ideas are shaped and systematized determines their effect 
upon the development of a group.? 

P. 232. ANoOINTING-o1L.—Oil, besides adding to the pleasure of 
Oriental life, has medicinal properties and, in certain climates, is 
indispensable (H.Bi. “Oil,” §4). Kings, priests, and prophets 
(1 Kings xix. 16) were anointed ; the king and, later, the high priest 
being “‘ the anointed par excellence’’ (see Gray, Sacrifice, 258 sq.). 
To the installation of the king as “‘ Yahweh’s anointed ”’ corresponded 
the anointing of a prince by his suzerain, as when the King of Egypt 
anointed the head of the grandfather of Addu-nirari (Amarna Letters, 
No. 51). The anointing of images (and also of priests and wor- 
shippers) was both Babylonian and Egyptian custom.* The wide- 
spread practice of anointing stones (on which see Frazer, FOT'. ii. 
72 sq.) has been explained as merely an act of honour. This, however, 
hardly covers all the facts, seeing that Assyrian dedication tablets, 

1A. Biichler, Types of Jewish-Palestinian Piety, 197 sqg., 200, 246 sq., 254; 
Marmorstein, Doctrine of Merits in old Rabb. Literature, T1, 90, 251. On the 
trumpet-blowing (p. 231 above), cf. Biichler, 232 sq. 

2 On the rain-makers among the Nilotic Dinkas, see Seligman’s article (ERE. 
s.v., and cf. JRAT. xliii. 671 sqq.). On European rain-makers, see A. B. Cook, 
Folk-lore, xv. 371 sqq. 

3 Morgenstern, 63. The pure, bright, resplendent oil was valued in Babylonia 
or certain ceremonies; cf. “‘ oil of life ” (Beitrage z. Ass. iv. 160 1. 42). Oil was 
used in Bab. and Jewish divination (S. Daiches on Bab. oil magic ; London, 1913), 
and in Greek (Farnell, Greece and Babylon, 301). 


FIRSTFRUITS AND FIRSTLINGS 583 


which were inscribed with the name of the founder, etc., were oiled 
and received sacrifices (cf. Harper, Ass. and Bab. Lit., 80, etc.). Here 
the intention appears to be to preserve the name; and that this is 
frequently true elsewhere is suggested (a) by the application of milk, 
butter, and of other forms of nourishment to stones, and (b) by the 
belief in the vital properties of oil, fat, etc. (cf. p. 379 sq.). Hence, 
anointing may often be regarded as a mode of transmitting either 
the sacred power of which the liquid was the symbol or vehicle, or the 
inherent nutritive and other properties with which it was credited. 
Indeed, to smear oneself with the remains of the dead, was one way 
of acquiring the qualities whether of man or animal—to eat the potent 
thing was another (see GB. viii. 162-5). See in general, Crawley 
and Jastrow, HRE. s.v. “ Anointing”; Weinel, ZATW. xviii. 1 sqq.; 
Wellhausen, Arch. f. Rel. vii. 33 sqq., and cf. ix. 140. 

P. 241. Firstrrvuirs anp Firstiines (cf. pp. 458 sqgq.).—The 
parallel between the firstlings and the treatment of fruit-trees 
(Lev. xix. 23 sqqg.) is important ; see pp. 159 n., 463. The trees are 
“sacred ’’ and must not be touched ; similarly, when Israel is “‘ sacred ”’ 
to Yahweh, those who harm her suffer (Jer. ii. 3). Special precautions 
are necessary at the first use of things; so, e.g., at the opening up of 
new unbroken “ virgin” land (p. 158), for which the Talmudic term 
is béthulah, used also of untrimmed sycamores.! The conviction that 
the firstfruits or firstlings do not belong to those who might seem 
to have the first right takes many forms which are of interest for early 
ideas of ownership and property rights (p. 638). Usually, offerings must 
first be made to a god (or the gods), to the priest or the ruler—both 
primarily as representatives of the god(s)—or to the dead (ancestral 
spirits); or they are used for communal purposes, and more par- 
ticularly for the poor (above, pp. 247, 253, 347).2 Sometimes the 
firstfruits are eaten by the people themselves, not merely ceremonially 
but sacramentally ; or there are merely vague ideas, as among the 
Gallas, where the person who milks the cows should not drink of it 
before a sip has been taken by some one else.*® 

Various explanations of the offering of firstlings, etc., have been 
suggested. (a) It is an act of renunciation ; more positively it is the 
sacrifice of a portion in order to secure the rest. It is to suffer a 
willing loss in order to escape a worse one ; it is to propitiate Nemesis ; 
it is the price of success. . . . Intuitive feelings of this sort appear 


1 On the use of the Arabic halla, see p. 577. 

2 At the present day the proceeds of the firstfruits may be devoted to a feast 
in the name and to the honour of the welt (J POS. vi. 25 n. 5). 

3 Miss A. Werner, Journ. of the African Soc. xiii. 130. See in general, GB. viii. 
ch, xi., and cf. Gray, Numbers, 225 sqq. 


584 SIGNIFICANCE OF FIRSTFRUITS 


to be widespread and fundamental, and are too powerful to be ignored 
(cf. Crawley, Mystic Rose, 366). More precisely (6), it is a thank- 
offering and thanksgiving, gratitude for the past (see esp. Gray, 
Sacrifice, 94 ef passim). Yet, in any case, close at hand there lies 
the hope of continued favours and future blessings; and however 
natural gratitude may seem to be, not far off are the ideas, however 
indefinite, of the part played by the supernatural powers. So (c) 
““ God gave the increase” (1 Cor. iii. 6); and it is the typical belief 
that the offerings belong properly to the gods. Sometimes the formula 
is quite explicit: ‘‘ What comes of thy hand we give thee” (1 Chron. 
xxix. 14), or the modern “ from thee and to thee” (minnak u-ilék, 
Canaan, J POS. vi. 130). In these circumstances, to withhold offerings 
and tithes is to rob (or overreach) God and bring disaster upon the 
land (Mal. iii. 8-12); the gifts are “‘ sacred ’’ and must not be touched 
by the people, still less may they be eaten. 

The first of a thing, like that which is unused and not as yet 
profaned, is often believed to have superior sanctity and efficacy.” 
Moreover, the first of any growth is also a guarantee of fertility and 
continuity. Asa‘ part” for a‘‘ whole,’ as an offering which released 
the remainder of the produce from the taboo upon it, the practice 
of firstfruits lent itself to highly developed teaching. Thus Philo 
spiritualizes the offering of the first: sheaf ; and the aparche, a communal 
offering for the land, is for all mankind, and what the priest is to the 
city so the Jewish people is to the whole human race.’ Again, if the 
Greek firstfruits are the sheaves, the source of next year’s crop, the 
offering of a part for the whole seems to be intended to secure the 
continuity of produce.* In any event, it is a prevalent belief that a 
‘* part” can stand for a ‘‘ whole,’ and that through the “ part ”’ the 
‘“‘ whole’ can be preserved or harmed ; even as the preservation of 
the blood of a slain animal preserves the vital essence of the victim 
so that it is not annihilated (cf. pp. 158, 379). 


1 Judith, xi. 12 sg. In Mal. iii. 8, Wellhausen and others read, after the LXX, 
the verb ‘-k-b for k-b-'. 

2 Cf. the unused animal in Num, xix. 2; Deut. xxi.3; 1 Sam. vi. 7; and the 
firstling in Deut. xv. 19; see pp. 464 sqgq. See also W. Warde Fowler (Rel. Experi- 
ence of the Roman People, 172) on the festival on the Alban Mount, where the flesh 
of a white heifer that had never felt the yoke was partaken of by the deputies of 
the cities of the Latin League. 

3 See Gray, 324, 331, who observes that the resurrection of Jesus takes place 
on 16th Nisan, when the aparche was presented at the Temple (388 sg.). Lightfoot 
on Col. i. 18 points out that Christ as 2x4 was the firstfruits of the dead and 
also an “ originating power . . . the source of life.” 

4 See Cornford, Ridgeway Presentation Volume, 154 sq., 165; cf. 145 (following a 
hint of Warde Fowler) ; Miss Jane Harrison, Themis, 292, 306 sg.; Nilsson, 92, 123. 


CONTINUITY OF FOOD-SUPPLY 585 


The necessity of securing continuity underlies many different 
practices which in one way or another are felt to preserve from extinc- 
tion that which is vital. It may be enough that there is a god of 
whom the hunter must ask permission (pp. 158, 160). But among the 
Esquimaux of the Behring Straits a goddess preserves the “ souls” 
of the animals that are hunted and killed, only hunters who observe 
certain taboos will be successful, and as the “‘ souls”’ are reborn the 
continuity of the food-supply is ensured and the sanctity of life main- 
tained. This self-supporting system is an unusually interesting 
example of the widespread endeavour to preserve life by means of 
(1) some material or physical vehicle (blood, etc.), (2) the relation 
between it and a “ living ”’ deity, or (3) some idea or system of ideas 
which makes the individual life part of some more permanent whole. 
In the Esquimaux custom the seals and whales are perpetual reincar- 
nations ; and it is essentially the same when an individual (or an 
animal) is a member of a group (or species) which remains intact in 
spite of the death of the individual—or even, what is more significant, 
is preserved through the death ; cf. p. 579 n. 

Even in totemism the individual is born of a stock of “ spirit- 
souls ’’ which he rejoins at death; and since in this most rudimentary 
of cults there are both animal and plant totems, the difference between 
firstborn and firstfruits, between animal and cereal, does not seem 
to be so important as W. R. S. argues. His distinction between the 
zébah, where gods and men meet, and the minhah, which is made over 
to the god (pp. 240, 244, etc.), is as well founded as it is natural to 
regard pastoral religion as earlier than agricultural. On the other 
hand, to suppose that the latter “‘ borrowed ”’ from the former (p. 243, 
end of note) seems to go too far; it would be better, in the first 
instance, to recognize that similar fundamental ideas recur differently 
shaped owing to different conditions of life. W. R. 8.’s suggested 
evolution of sacrificial cults has been adversely criticized by those 
who find that social religious development is too complex a process 
for simple theories such as he put forward. The differentiation 
into animal and vegetable life points to a higher stage than that 
found in totem-cults and in other more unsystematized forms among 
rudimentary peoples. Moreover, the stages where gods are anthropo- 
morphic, and a similar life-blood runs through men and animals, 
are more systematized than those where the gods, if any, are scarcely 
part of the social system. Hence the idea of some essential oneness 
or unity takes very different forms according to the current convictions 
concerning men and the world of animal and plant life, even as in 

1See Frazer GB. iii. 207 sqq., who calls it ‘‘ animism, passing into religion ” 
(213). 


586 AUSTRALIAN FIRSTPRUITS 


mysticism the feeling of oneness with something other than one’s 
self is both shaped and expressed very differently by men differing as 
regards their particular religion or sect, or as regards their tempera- 
ment (eg. whether philosophical or nature mystics). But, funda- 
mentally, the individual is part of a larger ‘‘ whole,” though what 
that “‘ whole” is turns upon his system of thought. See p. 635. 

In Australian totemism there are clans which perform ceremonies 
that are believed to control or multiply the edible animal or vegetable 
species in question. Although the clan does not eat, or at least only 
very sparingly, of its totem, on these occasions it is indispensable that 
it should partake of a little. Each clan controls its own totem animal 
or plant for the others, and the formal manner in which the officiants 
eat a small portion of the food is an integral part of what, throughout, 
is a very solemn ceremony. So, whereas elsewhere firstfruits may 
be handed over to a god or his representative, here there is no reference 
to a god, and the relation between the Australian and similar rites, 
on the one hand, and those where gods are immediately involved, 
on the other, raises a most important question of priority. Jevons 
suggests that the latter are primary: the Australian practices belong 
to a later stage, where “‘ the reference to the god who is or was intended 
to partake of the firstfruits has, in the process of time and, we must 
add, in the course of religious decay, gradually dropped out.” + On 
the other hand, the Australian rites do not resemble those where, 
as so commonly happens,:an earlier god-idea has been washed away. 
The clan functions as a god might do on the anthropomorphic level, 
and the All-Fathers or Supreme Beings take no direct part. The 
clan officiates in a “* sacred’ condition, the clan and its totem are 
of the same substance, and to eat a portion of the food would be, so 
to say, cannibalism and akin to incest, both of which—very significantly 
—are at times more or less ceremonial acts. To all intents and 
purposes the very “ soul”’ of the food lies within the members of the 
clan; they are the sources of its existence and continuity. They 
alone are the producers of that which is their own. This seems 
fundamental, It is in other and less rudimentary communities that 
the question arises whether the firstfruits belong to the community 
as a whole or the poorer section of them, to the indispensable sacred 
officiants, to the responsible being, the god of the community, or to 
his own sacred representative. But, primarily, firstfruits and firstlings 


1 Introd. to Comp. Rel. 184; cf. Idea of God, 87, 90 sg. For general statements, 
and for discussions of the Australian evidence, see Jevons, Introd. 184 sqq., 198 sqq. ; 


Toy, § 128, and, in the first instance, Frazer, G.B. i. 85 sgq.; Tot. Ex. i. 104 


sqq., 230 sqq., citing Spencer and Gillen, to whom the evidence is due; see above, 
p. 535 and n. 2, 


ee ee ea 


a 


TITHES AND ENDOWMENTS 587 


seem to arise out of the necessity for providing for the maintenance of 
the most fundamental needs of life. 

P. 245 n. 2. Trruxs.—In Babylonian religion the idea of tribute 
involved in offering animals appears to have been of a secondary 
character (Jastrow, Rel. Bel. 148). Tithes, too, are a relatively late 
institution, and first appear in a highly developed form in the time 
of Nebuchadrezzar 1. (sixth century b.c.). According to Hissfeldt, 
more objects are tithed, and instead of tithes of natural objects, 
payments in money are not unusual and even money itself seems 
to be tithed ; and tithing is less a personal and more of a business 
transaction (Baudissin-Festschrift, 166). See further W. R. &., 
Prophets, 383 sq.; E.Bi. ‘* Taxation” (Benzinger), ‘‘ Tithes ”? (Moore) ; 
Sir G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, i. ch. vi. sq.; Eissfeldt, Erstlinge und 
Zehnien, 1. A.T. (Leipzig, 1917); PW. iv. 2306, 2423; and H. 
Schaeffer, Social Legislation of the Primitive Semites (New Haven, 
1915), ch. xiii. 

P. 247 n. 2.—On the inscription, see PW. ii. 2779, and A. B. Cook, 
Zeus, i. 565 n. 2. 

P. 248 n.—Duval’s interpretation of the Aramaic inscription at 
Taima (CIS. ii. 113; Cooke, No. 69) is accepted by Lagrange, 503 sq. 
The text speaks of the “ grant (?)”’ (mp ty) of palm-trees which Salm 
of Mahram and Sin-galla and Ashira (cf. Ashirat, p. 561), gods of 
Taima, gave to Salm of Hagam, and the priesthood which was con- 
ferred upon Salm-Shézeb, son of Pet-osiri, and his seed after him, 
“*. . . (?) of the field, 16 palms, and of the treasure (NNMD'w) of the king 
5 palms, in all 2] palms every year.” Some (eg. Hartmann, 464) 
explain Salm (“ image,” cf. p. 562 n. 3) as the numen, and NNW as an 
endowment. For ordinary endowments of trees, cf. the nut-trees 
with which a Christian church was endowed (Sir E. Budge, Thomas of 
Marga, 239, 653), and the renting of a vine belonging to a Palestine 
shrine to a man, the money going to its upkeep (JPOS. iv. 35); for 
Bab. examples see C. H. W. Johns, Bab. and Ass. Laws, Contracts, 
etc. (1904), 208 sqq. 

P. 249.—On the Deuteronomic law, see Driver, Deut. 168 sqq. 
Chapman, Introd. to the Pentateuch (1911), 155 sqq.; A. H. M‘Neile, 
Deut. (1912), 80 sqq.; and on the abuses against which the law is 
directed, cf. also W. R.8., Prophets, 98 sqq. 

P. 254 n. 6.—A€oyn, like péyapov (p. 200), wadda& (Heb. pillégesh), 
etc., may be neither Semitic nor Greek, but of some common Atgean 
origin (see Autran, Les Phéniciens [1920], 13, 46). On the use of 
the Heb. word, see Box, H.Bi. “ Temple,” § 32. The modern shrine 
(makdm) will have one or more additional rooms for meals or festivals, 
for a kitchen or a dwelling-place for the attendant, for a schoolroom, 


588 GLOOMY TYPES OF RELIGION 


guest-chamber, or for the pilgrims who spend a few days at the shrine. 
In such cases the building is mostly composed of two or at times of 
three storeys ; and they are dedicated to “ Prophets’ rather than to 
the welts (Canaan, JPOS. iv. 16 sq.). Such buildings recall the old 
synagogues (on which see Peritz, H.Bz. 4834 sqq.).+ 

P. 258. GLroomy Typrs or ReLicion.—Ed. Meyer (Gesch. d. Alt. 
i. $191) comments upon the sinister note in Egyptian religion. In 
Babylonia this is much more marked. Babylonia is a land “ not 
of laughter but of gloom and of serious meditation.” “‘ The fear of 
divine anger runs as an undercurrent throughout the entire religious 
literature of Babylonia and Assyria.’”?? Gloom, it has been said, 
pervades Semitic religion, and distinguishes it from the healthy, 
happy tone that characterizes the religion of the Rig Veda as a whole, 
the latter in turn recalling, in several respects, the characteristics of 
the religion of the Viking period. The profound difference between 
Greek and Semitic religion is strongly emphasized by Farnell.* 
Similarly Warde Fowler observes that in the Roman religion there is 
““ no fear so long as the worship of the gods is performed exactly and 
correctly according to the rules of the state priesthoods ; there is no 
sense of sin or of pollution, of taboo irremediably broken, haunting 
the mind of the individual; all is cheerfully serious, regular, ordered, 
ritualistic.” ® See also p. 563. 

To be sure, every religion has its vicissitudes, and Farnell (Hvolu- 
tion of Religion, 113 sq.) notes the possibility that in Greece the 
‘* cathartic legislation emanating chiefly from Delphi and Crete may 
point to a religion which the intellectualism of Homeric civilization 
had happily suppressed for a time, but which reasserted itself, with 
renewed strength, when that civilization was overthrown.” W.R.S. 
himself lays stress upon the changes which political disasters brought 
upon the old religion (p. 258, cf. p. 78), and Meyer summarizes con- 
cisely some typical changes in the history of religions (i. § 67 sq.). 
Further, difference of climate and difference of national temperament 
are obviously important factors ; and they are adduced to explain the 
fundamental divergence between the old Iranian ethical and practical 
religion and the pessimistic and mystical developments of post-Vedic 

1 Miss Jane Harrison compares the aéeyy to the “‘ man’s house ” of the South 
Seas, etc. (Themis, 36 n. 3). 

2See Jastrow, Rel. Bel. 326 sqq., 333, 358; R. Campbell Thompson) Cae i? 
533 ; Langdon, ib. 443 ; Cook, 2b. 200. 

2H, M. Chadwick, The Heroic Age, ch. xviii., who also compares Homeric 
Greece. 

4 Greece and Babylon, 263; Higher Aspects of Greek Religion, 132 sq. Halliday, 


CAH. ii. 606, speaks of the “‘ friendliness ” of Greek worship. 
5 Anthropology and the Classics (ed. Marett), 173. 


JOYFUL TYPES OF RELIGION 589 


religion in India.t_ Sensuality and cruelty go hand in hand (p. 415). 
Ashurbanipal, “ the compassionate,” after torturing and killing the 
rebels of Babylon, declares, “‘ After I had performed these acts I 
softened the hearts of the Great Gods.” The fanatical temper which 
found savage cruelty acceptable to the injured gods is akin to that 
bold anthropomorphism whereby Yahweh is said to comfort or appease 
himself by taking vengeance upon his enemies (Isa. i. 24). Not 
unnaturally, therefore, do men dread the arbitrary gods (Jastrow, 
144, 326), even as Islam has an exaggerated consciousness of sin and 
fear of divine vengeance.’ 

The joyful and happy types of religion are psychologically no less 
significant ; and in Israel “ sacrificial occasions were pre-eminently 
happy occasions ”’ (Gray, Sacrifice, 93). This only makes the evidence 
for fear and gloom the more instructive. Throughout rudimentary 
religion high spirits and gaiety abound.? Shintoism has been described 
as a religion of happy social intercourse,* and among the Warramunga 
of Central Australia there is a totem of the “ laughing boys ”’ (Durk- 
heim, 379 sqqg.). No doubt the happy type of religion has a careless- 
ness, and its mirth was not always innocent (Ex. xxxii. 6). Moreover, 
easy confidence in the god, particularly the god of one’s own group, 
was not conducive to any depth of religion, and the light-heartedness 
of Samaria, denounced by Isaiah (ix. 8 sqq.), was, in view of the current 
conditions, unnatural. When there are recognized ways,of maintain- 
ing the unity of gods and worshippers religion tends to be taken 
lightly ; and familiarity breeds a camaraderie, and an almost con- 
temptuous estimate of the gods (cf. Chadwick, op. cit. 418, on Homer 
and the Viking Age). But while it is tempting to contrast the happy 
type in Israel with the later gloom and the undoubted timid notes 
of post-exilic Judaism, it can hardly be supposed that the Syro- 
Ephraimite wars before the rise of Jeroboam 11., or the earlier Philistine 
and other crises, did not cloud the more cheerful type of religion. 
The Semitic readiness to pass from one extreme to another—already 
to be illustrated in the laments of Palestinian chiefs of the fourteenth 
century in their letters to Egypt—and the great events of early Pales- 
tinian history were of a sort to destroy any thoroughgoing optimistic 
religion, and they forbid simple theories of the devclopment of religion 


1G. F. Moore, Hist. of Religions, i. 359 sqq.; for the Vedas, cf. J. N. Farquhar, 
Outline of the Rel. Lit. of India (1920), 13 sq.; and for Indian pessimism, cf. Mrs. 
Sinclair Stevenson, The Heart of Jainism, 2, 4 (1915). 

2R. A. Nicholson, Literary History of the Arabs, 211, 225. 

3 Irving King, Development of Rel. 58, 100, 241 sq. 

4 King, 114 sq., citing Aston, Shinto, the Way of the Gods, 6. Against the 
criticism that Shinto has no ethics, see Moore, i. 107. 


590 RELIGION OF INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP 


from one absolute type to another. In fact, a fuller knowledge of 
rudimentary peoples, with their gaiety, cruelty, and irresponsibility, 
warns one not to read more into the conception of “ the childhood 
of humanity” (cf. p. 257) than the evidence warrants. The data 
upon which are based generalizations of gloomy and of happy types 
of religion are derived from different ages, stages, and classes of 
society. There are the obvious extremes of gloom, fanaticism, and 
dread, and of confidence, over-confidence, and indifference ; and the 
actual historical development of every religion has lain between them. 

P. 263 sqq. THE RELIGION OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND OF THE GROUP. 
—W. R. S.’s pages have become classical. The difference between 
individualism and the conditions where the group is a unit with a 
‘* corporate personality ’’ must not be made absolute. Group-unity 
‘* does not: mean that no individual life is recognized, but simply that 
in a number of realms in which we have come to think individual- 
istically and to treat the single man as the unit, for punishment or 
reward, ancient thought envisaged the whole group of which he was 
part.” 1 It means that a man does not exist except as a member 
of some group, clan, or tribe.2 Early communities are relatively 
undifferentiated, there is less specialization of life and thought, and 
a man has less opportunity for developing along independent lines 
than in those more complex societies where religious, political, and 
other groupings do not necessarily coincide, and a man can belong 
to a number of different groups with group interests, traditions, and 
aims (see p. 506). In the simpler societies the individual has rights 
(e.g. as regards property and marriage); moreover, religion “‘ is an 
affair of all in which every one takes an active and equivalent part.”’ ® 
What is in one sense a loss of individuality enables a man to find 
himself in a larger social circle and at another level. But the worth 
of the individual is subordinated to that of the group, and the security 
of the whole outweighs the welfare of the individual part. The group 
protects the individual so far as recognized group interests and 
custom demand ; but it is ready to treat with harshness the man 
marked out from the rest by reason of suffering, misfortune, abnor- 
mality, or some suspected sign of the displeasure of the supernatural 
powers. Group-religion is “‘ this worldly,’ and social (p. 263); 
whereas in individual religion the man treads his own path, and 
sacrifice may be little more than a private bargain (p. 393). There 


1H. Wheeler Robinson, in Peake, The People and the Book, 376. 

2 Cf. G. C. Wheeler, The Tribe, 16. 

3 Malinowski (ed. Needham), 81 sg.; for general remarks, see ib. 53 sq., where 
the extent of distinctively individual religious experience among savages is 
described. 


a as 


** REPRESENTATIVE ”’ INDIVIDUALS 591 


is a tendency to deprecate the personal religion which severs a man 
from his group; logically, such religion lies outside the system of 
the group, whether, with his private ideas, he may be proceeding 
along anti-social lines, or is contributing to the progressive develop- 
ment of his group.! 

Group-religion is not a water-tight system. The group and its 
god may be regarded as a unit, but in practice certain individuals, 
objects, acts, and seasons are more sacred than others, and there is 
a tendency to specialization in both sacred and secular duties. Men 
of pre-eminent ability are readily credited with supernatural attri- 
butes ; men of position and experience become elders, and even among 
rudimentary peoples they are concerned in preserving or advancing 
group interests.” Specially irksome taboos will not be observed by 
the whole group, but restricted to and imposed upon a few; and 
the specially sacred things are no longer for the group as a whole. 
Certain individuals become representative, and even among rudi- 
mentary peoples “ individual totems,” as distinct from the totems of 
whole clans, make for personal religion, as also do the sacred animal- 
guardians or protectors of the North American Indian. 

While a group can be spoken of as a single individual, a single 
individual can for all intents and purposes represent a group. The 
*“* part’ then stands for the whole, either occasionally, as in cases of 
collective responsibility, blood-feud, scapegoats, etc., or in the more 
permanent functions of ruler or priest. In the case of the priestly or 
sacred king the “ representative’ individual is the visible embodi- 
ment of the people and land, and no less of the god; he represents, 
in one sense, the god to the people, and, in another sense, the people 
to the god. He is an intermediary and intercessor, responsible for 
benefits and evils, and the natural culprit or scapegoat when things 
go wrong (see GB. vol. ix.). In the solidarity of king—group—god 
the king is the individual, and his position and functions so vital that 
he is the centre of the national cult which grows up around him.°® 
The growth of society has been marked by the increase of other 
significant functioning and representative individuals in religion 
(national, family, clan, and private cults) and in secular life. Accord- 
ingly, in most lands the communities are not a little complex: in 

1 Cf. Marett, Ency. Brit. xxii. 258a. Even at the higher stages of development 
silent prayers are discountenanced lest a man pray for that which he would be 
ashamed for others to know of (Farnell, Kvol. of Rel. 206). 

2Cf. Landtman, The Primary Causes of Social Inequality, 3 (Helsingfors. 
1909); W. Beck, Das Individwum bei den Australiern (Leipzig Instit. f. V dlker- 
kunde, 1924). 

3 Cf. Jastrow, Rel. Bel. 241 sq.; Hitrem, 287 sqqg.; S. A. Cook (ed. Peake), 
64 sqq. 


ao) EXTREME INDIVIDUALISM 


Babylonia, for example, the line between public and private cults 
must not be too sharply drawn; there are both family and clan cults, 
and a man could have his own god who would, if necessary, approach 
a great god on his behalf.' 

While the history of religions and the multiplication of sects by 
fission have recalled biological processes,” the vicissitudes of religious 
and secular groups would be much more intricate and unmanageable 
were it not for the concept of the group-unit (p. 504). The validity 
of W. R. S.’s generalizations can be tested by observing the ordinary 
facts of the history of social groups; and they open up questions of 
far-reaching interest. Everywhere are tendencies that make for con- 
centration and intensification and ultimate stagnation, and those 
that make for diffusion, cosmopolitanism, and ultimate weakening 
(cf. p. 264). One may compare the varying endogamous and exo- 
gamous tendencies in societies ; compulsory marriage either within or 
without a group or constellation of groups obviously affecting very 
differently the beliefs and customs of the groups involved. Periods 
of decadence and disintegration of earlier groups or group-systems, 
excessive individualism, and subsequent periods of organization, 
integration, and harmony of sentiment, are normal in the history of 
society. In Israel, at certain periods, as W. R. 8. points out, “ indi- 
viduality stiffened into individualism ... each man’s feeling of 
personal worth asserted itself in refusal to acknowledge the rights of 
others and the supreme sovereignty of Yahweh.’ * Such a descrip- 
tion is typical, and the inner history of the movement of religious and 
other thought from the decline of the monarchy of Judah to the 
inauguration of Judaism after the Exile is of supreme significance for 
the interrelation of the religion of individuals and that of groups, and 
for the growth of a new unity. 

The Sumerian revival under Gudea of Lagash was marked by 
important religious and social movements, and during a seven days 
Saturnalia “‘ the maid was the equal of her mistress, and master 
and slave consorted together as friends.’ 4 Saturnalia, with the 
inversion of social ranks—and even with human sacrifice (GB. ix. 407) 
—are irregular manifestations of equality and unity which temporarily 
ignore those social conditions where differences in rank, ability, and 
function are normally recognized, as even among many rudimentary 
peoples.. But, apart from Saturnalia, there are the more ordered social 


1 Jastrow, 300; cf. Morgenstern, 25. 

2G. F. Moore, Hist. of Religions, ii. pp. x, 368. 

8 Lectures, 444. He refers to three periods of decay: (a) the time of the 
Judges, (b) before the Captivity, and (c) before the fall of Jerusalem. 

4L. W. King, History of Sumer and Akkad, 271 sq.; Langdon, CAH. i.2 429, 


7 
eye a 


13 


INDIVIDUAL RELIGION 593 


’ practices which manifest and cement the unity of the group, the sub- 
conscious unity which lies beneath the otherwise recognized differences. 
Unity is also fostered by the beliefs and rites of a levelling character, 
such as the absolute and unique supremacy of the god of the group, 
or of all interrelated groups, by symbols of a universal order (e.g. 
Sun and Sky-gods), by religious ideas which are universally intelligible, 
by a history which intimately unites all members of the group. Here 
the history of Israel is of cardinal value on account of the teaching 
of the great prophets before and at the Exile, and the subsequent 
reorganization, whereas centuries later at the rise of Christianity a 
Jewish sect arose from a Judaism which was unable to make a further 
advance, and the Jews ceased to be a nation. The facts of social and 
religious reorganization and decay are thus highly suggestive for the 
relations between groups and their constituent individuals. 

When Gray (Sacrifice, 43 sqq.) remarks that the prophets ‘“ do not 
call the people back to a theory of sacrifice as a means of communion 
with God,” he well observes that “‘ the tenour of their teaching was, 
not gifts but fellowship,” and that the road lay not through “‘ the 
sacrificial system reinterpreted, but through conduct” (cf. 52). 
They demanded a self-renunciation, an obedience to a righteous God, 
not deprivation or the transference of property, or even particular 
rites whereby fellowship could be periodically manifested and realized 
in a physical or material sense. In the doctrine of the New Covenant 
(Jer. xxxi.), “‘ the central truth,’ says Skinner, “is thé inwardness 
of true religion, the spiritual illumination of the individual mind. . . .” 
There is a transition to a new individualism, for the Covenant is with 
each and every member of the community, and “ the principle of 
nationalism is carried over from the Old dispensation to the New.” 
Accordingly in Deuteronomy, “ one of the most noteworthy attempts 
in history to regulate the whole life of a people by its highest religious 
principle,” ? emphasis is laid upon the fact that Israel has come of 
age (xxix. 4, 13; cf. 1 Cor. xiii. 11), a new stage is inaugurated in the 
history of the people, and the immediacy and simplicity of the religious 
demands are the most striking features (Deut. xxx. 11-14). Similarly 
at the rise of Christianity, the appeal is to the individual, his worth is 
enhanced ; and, though a yoke must be borne, it is an easy one 
(Matt. xi. 30). As distinct from the most elemental or impressive or 
innocent of communion rites, the teachers of spiritual religion in 
addressing the individual emphasize the simplicity and directness of 
the new relationship, whether as a Covenant to be written on each 
man’s heart, or as a Divine Presence where two or three are gathered 

1 J. Skinner, Prophecy and Religion, 329 (Cambridge, 1922). 
2 Moore, H.Bi. “* Deuteronomy,” col. 1093. 
38 


594 NEW REINTEGRATION 


in His name. And the next step has been to apply the teaching to 
a group or people as a whole. 

Long ago W. R. 8. emphasized the difference between the Christian 
‘“‘ conventicle,” the group united only by “ similarity of experience 
in details, identity of individual frames and habits of mind,” and the 
Church as an “ organic unity,” uniting men of different types of 
religion and stages of spiritual growth (Lectures, 326 sq.). The dis- 
tinction is important, because it is obvious that, where there is or has 
been regained a group-unity of men and their gods, the social-religious 
ideas have been systematized afresh. There has been a new co- 
ordination of corporate and individual habits and practices, a sufficient 
intelligibility of the most vital ideas, and a common consciousness 
which, despite all differences within the group, enable it to function 
as a unit. Whether W. R. 8. was influenced by his own earlier ideals 
of an “ organic unity” in Christianity, or not, he made powerful 
generalizations which are seen to be self-evident. Group-unity or 
corporate personality is constantly disintegrating, and new integra- 
tions are being formed; the movements range from the supreme 
examples in the history of man to the vicissitudes of small parties 
and sects, from the most impressive reconstruction to the most casual 
recovery of social equilibrium. As far back as one can go, one can 
postulate an alternation between group coherence and incoherence, 
between the more collective and the more individual moments. In 
the history of religion there must, in the nature of the case, have been 
innumerable examples of social-religious reorganization even in the 
simplest and earliest societies. The farther back one goes, the more 
impossible is it to conceive the details of such prehistoric systems ; 
one is led, not to isolated beliefs or rites, or to isolated individuals, 
but rather to social systems, inconceivably rudimentary, but of a sort 
that could evolve ultimately into religion as we know it. Miscellaneous 
data, such as are still found among many rudimentary peoples (Anda- 
manese, Veddahs, etc.), have of course their value; but, for the 
systematic treatment of the religious data, the social-religious systems 
are the more important, even though, as in the case of the totemic 
systems of Central Australia, they have a history behind them and 
are no longer in their “‘ original ’’ shape. 

P. 270 and n. 2.— SALT is both destructive and life: -giving, eee 
and preservative. Ashurbanipal (Annals, vi. 79) scattered salt over 
the cities he had laid waste, and salt on the ground is a bad omen 


1The more clearly the significance of collective religious rites for the social 
cohesion of primitive peoples is recognized (as by Malinowski, 64 sq.), the more 
necessary becomes the inquiry into the processes whereby periods of disintegration 
were succeeded by some new reconstruction. 


BOND OF MILK AND BLOOD 595 


(Jastrow, Rel. Bab. u. Ass. ii. 716). In Bab. ritual as in the Israelite 
it was strewn upon the sacrificial flesh (Ezek. xliii. 24; KAT’. 598) ; 
and salt was among the things taboo to the Babylonian king on certain 
days of the month: viz. 7, 14, 21, 28, and (reckoned from the previous 
month) 49 (A. Jeremias, Ceisteskultur, 170). Salt is impregnating 
(Kitrem, 329), and a symbol of life; cf. Homer’s “ divine salt.” 
It is still used in covenants (Landberg, Dialectes, ii. 303 sqq.; Arab. 
v. 157 sq.), perhaps on account of its preservative virtues. It is 
rubbed into the new-born child (cf. Déller, 31 sq., 282), and in Palestine 
is offered to the dead, or to a holy saint to enlist his favour (J POS. v. 
196). See W. R.8., Hncy. Brit. s.v. “ Salt”? ; also W. R. 8S. and 
A. R. 8S. Kennedy, #.Bi. s.v.; EHitrem, 309 sqq. 

P. 274. Bonp or MiiK.—On the validity of the bond of milk 
among the Bantu tribes, see Seligman, JRA. xliii. 657. Such a bond 
unites ;. but it can also make marriage impossible. A man will suck 
the milk of the woman who adopts him (Rev. des l Hist, des Rel. liv. 
[1906], 391); but among the A-kamba, a Bantu tribe, there is “‘ a 
special curse used for a bad wife. ‘I'he husband draws a little milk 
from her breasts into his hand, and then licks it up; this is a curse 
which has no palliative; after it the husband can never again cohabit 
with the woman” (Seligman, citing Hobley, The A-Kamba, 105). 
Similarly, a boy and a girl who have been suckled together may not 
marry (Kinship, 196 n. 1). So also in the case of blood, a Palestinian 
woman will contrive that her indifferent husband drinks in his liquid 
a few drops of her blood in the belief that this will knit him more 
strongly to her (J POS. vi. 49). On the other hand, in the Irish Saga 
of the wooing of Emer, when Cichulainn wounded his love Dervorgil 
and sucked the wound, he was unable to marry her because he had 
tasted of her blood.t Cf. p. 506 n. 1. 

P. 274 n. 1.—See Kinship, p. 39 and n. Among the Kababish 
lahma expresses a uterine relationship ; a man says,“ I am the lahma 
of such and such a tribe,’ naming his mother’s (Seligman, Harvard 
Studies, 114). 

P. 279.—“ In India it is not the rule for Moslem men and women 
to eat separately ; as far as my observation goes, it is the universal 
rule in Syria” (A. S. Tritton; private communication). Crawley 
(Mystic Rose, ch. vii.; cf. 376 sq., 379 sq.), discussing commensal 
relations, argues that the custom of not eating together is common 
even between brothers and sisters, and is due to a taboo between the 
sexes. 


1A man who has drunk of the blood of another tribe is bound to support it 
against his own totem or kin group (Spencer and Gillen, Vative Tribes of Central 
Australia, 461). 


596 SACRED MEALS 


P. 290 n. 2.—Besides Prof. J. B. Bury’s suggested connexion 
between Hecate and the dog (for which see Preller-Robert*, i. 326 
and n. 1), cf. that of Dr. H. R. Hall, CAH. ii. 309, deriving it from 
the Egyptian hike’, “‘ magic’ (on which term, see p. 551 n.). 

P. 292 n. 1.—The cylinder (also in Lajard, Culte de Mithra, 
pl. xxix, no. 5) is explained by Hofiner (Gaz. Arch., 1.c.) as the repre- 
sentation of a god of the Heracles-Sandon type. 

P. 292 n. 2.—To xabp correspond the Tyrian yxéA8ns (Josephus, 
contra Apion. i. 21 [157]) and conceivably yaABns, the herald slain 
by Heracles in Egypt (Apollodor. ii. 5, 11); see Lidzbarski, H'phem. ii. 
10 and n.1. With pSyabp (so read) may be compared the New Bab. 
names Kalab-Ba’u, etc. (PSBA. xxi. 1383; H.Bi. “ Caleb,” § 1), 
where the meaning may be “ priest or servant”’; cf. in the Amarna 
Letters, e.g. 60,, kalbu sha bitishu, “* the (king’s) house-dog,” CAH. 
ii. 322; see also Lagrange, 221 n. 1; Hommel, Hthnol. 91 and 
Nye. 

P. 295. COMMENSALITY AND SACRAMENTAL MEALS.1—The differ- 
ence between (a) eating in the presence of a god, (6) eating together 
with him (p. 270), and (c) eating the god himself, naturally affects 
the development of ideas (in myth, theology, philosophy, etc.) which 
can ensue in each case. But it is not always easy to draw a distinction. 
In meals for the dead, the dead are commonly supposed to join; and 
in those before the god, gods and men commonly participate.2 At 
a modern Palestinian festival in fulfilment of a vow a prayer will be 
offered on behalf of the soul of the welt, the sacrifice is for him, and 
the saint is the host, dispensing hospitality ; the participants are his 
guests, and all passers-by may join in. To him belongs the “ soul ”’ 
of the food—a widespread belief when food is offered to supernatural 
beings. In Deut. xii. 7, etc., the meal is in Yahweh’s presence 
(cf. Driver on Ex. xviii. 12), and there is similar cautious wording in 
Ex. xxiv. 10 sg. (carried further in the LXX); but the prophets 
preserve the belief that Yahweh prepares his feast, issues his invita- 
tions, and sends the cup round among the guests (Isa, xxv. 6; Zeph. i. 7; 


1Cf. A. Thomsen, Archiv f. Rel., 1909, pp. 464 sqg., 471 sq. A. A. Sykes, in 
his essay on the Nature, Design, and Origin of Sacrifices (1748), 59 sqq., already 
observes that the common meal is a covenant, and that sacrifice is a friendship 
entered into and renewed with a god. He compares the alliance in #neid, 
villi. 275 (‘‘communemque vocate Deum,” 7.e. the god common to the two 
parties). Cf. below, pp. 665 sqq. 

2 Eitrem, 475 sqg.; W. Warde Fowler, Rel. Experience of the Roman People, 
193 (and Index, s.v. ‘‘ Meals ” [sacrificial]). 

3 JPOS. vi. 48, 44 sq., 61 sqg., 73 and n. 1. Where the food is definitely made 
over to the gods it may be admittedly used by the priests or distributed among 
the poor; the story of Bel and the Dragon is ignorant of this. 


ee ee ee 


THE DIVINE FOOD 597 


Jer. xxv. 15 sqq.). Similarly, Paul in 1 Cor. x. 18 sqq. interprets the 
sacred meal as communion with the altar, 7.e. the Deity.* 

The common meal unites men as kin, or it strengthens or renews 
an existing union. The food may be “ sanctified’ for the occasion, 
like the guests; or it is already “‘ sacred.’ The divinity of life- 
giving food is well attested. The Babylonian Nisaba is both corn 
and a goddess; Tammuz (later Ta-uz), like Adonis, was the divine 
corn in the same way that Ceres and Bacchus were corn and wine, 
and more than a common figure of speech.?, In an Egyptian hymn 
to Osiris the god is invoked: ‘‘ Thou art father and mother of men, 
they live by thy breath, they (eat) the flesh of thy body, thy name 
is Primeval God . . . thou breathest out breath into men’s nostrils ”’ 
(Erman, A/gypt. Zeit. xxxviii. 33). Here Osiris is more than a corn- 
god (for which see GB. vi. 89 sqy.) ; he is the life of the earth in which 
he is embedded, his sweat is the water, his breath the air. How 
readily ideas of divine food and fruit, or of a divine being immanent 
in the sustenance of life, transfer themselves can be seen when the 
African Manichee Faustus “claims that he and his held the true 
Christian doctrine, and that the suffering Jesus is not a Divine Man 
born from a human mother and the Holy Spirit, but the fruit which 
is man’s food “ hanging on every tree, produced by the energy and 
power of the air that makes the earth conceive . . . wherefore our 
reverence for everything is like that of you Catholic Christians about 
the Bread and the Cup.’” ? Such a conception finds a parallel in the 
pantheistic Logion, “‘ Jesus saith, . . . raise the stone and there thou 
shalt find Me, cleave the wood and there am I,” and more especially 
in a modern Greek (EKubcean) conviction during Holy Week that 
unless Christ rose there would be no corn that year.* 

For the sacramental eating of firstfruits and of sacred food, Frazer 
has collected some evidence (GB. viii. 48 sqq.; cf. 86 syg., 138 sq.), 
the most significant being the cases where the identity of the food 
with a god is explicit, as in the Aztec ceremony, the resemblance of 
which to the Christian Eucharist so impressed the early Spanish 


1Cf. Gressmann, Ursprung d. israel.-jiid. Eschatologie, 129 sqq., 1386 sqq. ; 
ZNTW. xx. 224, 227, 230. 

2 GB. viii. 167; Lagrange, 240 n.3; and Jastrow, Rel. B. A.i1. 670; Baudissin, 
114, and Index, s.v. Tammuz; for Adonis, see 1b. 161 sq. (cf. Frazer, GB. v. 229 sq.). 
See above, p. 578, on S-d and Dagan. 

3 F.C. Burkitt, The Religion of the Manichees (Cambridge, 1925), 41 sq., citing 
Augustine, c. Faust. xx. 2 (Jesus as a power of vegetation and the Divine Being 
in the Sun); cf. S. A. Cook, Journ. of Theol. Stud. xxvi. 387 sq. 

“Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore, 573. Cf. an article on “‘ Easter in Italy,” 
The Observer, April 17, 1927 (association of the awakening of Nature with the 
Passion). 


598 SACRAMENTAL MEALS 


missionaries.1 Hxamples of the ceremonial or sacramental eating of 
the totem are few: (1) the ‘“‘ leech” and “‘ jute” folk of Assam must 
chew a bit of the totem (Jot. Hx. iv. 298, 319). (2) On certain occasions 
the totem is eaten in Southern Nigeria (7b. ii. 589 sq.). (3) Among 
the Zuni the turtle-ancestor is ceremonially killed, but it is not clear 
that it is a totem or eaten by the people (ib. i. 44 sq., iv. 232). (4) A 
Bechuana tribe ceremonially kill the porcupine, whose flesh is supposed 
to have strengthening properties, but it is not eaten (GB. viii. 165). 
On the other hand, (5) the Central Australian evidence strikingly 
confirms W. R. 8.’s totem sacrament theory; although to Frazer 
and others (Tot. Hx. iv. 230 sq.) the discoveries of Spencer and Gillen 
have only added fresh difficulties (see above, pp. 535 n. 2, 586). Thus 
it is objected that, (a) instead of a religious rite, the Australian cere- 
monies are ‘‘ magical ”—in order to provide a plentiful supply of food ; 
(b) the animal is not regarded as divine; (c) other clans can kill and 
eat it; and (d) it would seem that the totem-clan itself once partook 
of it freely. 

In reply to such objections it is obvious, in the first place, that 
whether the totem rites are magical or religious depends upon pre- 
liminary definitions of the terms. Sir Baldwin Spencer originally 
spoke of them as religious, though later he acquiesced in Sir James 
Frazer’s view (Jot. Hx. i. 114 sq.). Marett (Psychology and Folklore, 
196 sqg.), Durkheim (339 sq.), and Jevons (Introd. to Comp. Rel. 
203 sq.) are among those who dissent from the label “‘ magical.” 
‘‘ Magico-religious ”? they may be styled, if necessary, in view of their 
significance for the group and the solemnity with which they are 
undertaken. Nor must it be overlooked (1) that the totem is sacred 
in a way that the members of the clan normally are not—except 
during the “ sacred’ ceremonies ; that (2) in more advanced stages 
of development gods are often far from being supreme beings far 
exalted above men (p. 563 s7.); and (3) that practical and utilitarian 
elements run through all religions. If the totem rites are to be 
styled “‘ magical” or are examples of ‘‘ departmental magic’ (cf. 
Malinowski [ed. Needham], 45), one must not overlook the remarkable 
extent to which it has been believed that sacred rites affect not merely 
the relations between a group and its god, but even the world in which 
the group finds itself.* 

The Australian totem sacrament cannot be severed from the 


1 Brinton, Rel. of Primitive Peoples, 189 sq.; Frazer, GB. viii. 88 sqq.; cf. 
above, p. 225 n. 3 (end). 

2 In reference to objections (c) and (d), it is not necessary to require that the 
totem of one clan should be taboo to other clans, or that the particular rites should 
always have been in vogue. If the totem was once freely eaten, the change is 


THEIR EFFICACY 599 


beliefs elsewhere in the almost cosmic efficacy of sacrifice and sacra- 
mental meals. On the Brahman theory of the daily sacrifice, see 
GB. ix. 410 sq. (cf. i. 228 sq.), Eggeling (Hncy. Brit. iv. 380d), and the 
monograph of Hubert and Mauss on Sacrifice (with special reference 
to ancient Indian and Jewish theory). The particular efficacy of a 
sacred meal is curiously seen in Manicheeism, where the elements of 
Light and Life, which are commingled with the dark and earthy, are 
one day to be separated. The Elect Manichee will not himself prepare 
food lest he injure the life contained in the grain, and “ a sacramental, 
indeed an actual physical, benefit accrued to the Universe through 
his eating it.”’1 The sacred “ life’? was to be found in high degree 
in the righteous, and by his taking into himself the “‘ Light’ that 
was in the food, there was, so to say, a cosmical effect, so much so 
that “ the Manichees believed that even a couple of the highest class 
of Initiates would suffice for what the world needed.’ When such 
conceptions could prevail in a religion which, though not a social- 
religious cult, spread widely and was of some influence in the course 
of its career, other variations of the fundamental belief in the effect 
of sacred meals and ceremonies upon the cosmos, or some department 
of it, can be well understood. It became necessary, on the one hand, 
to safeguard their interpretation and significance and, on the other, 
to restrict participation in them. So, the most sacred and most 
important occasions become reserved for the professional sacred caste, 
or there are periodical mystical sacrifices in which only*the members 
of exclusive guilds were brought near to the heart of things.? 

It is not necessary to regard totemism as the “ origin” of the 
beliefs and practices which are found elsewhere. Eating “ sacred ”’ 
food or the “‘ divine”’ essence in food is an intense form of communion 8; 
but not only is it a way of acquiring certain benefits, a sort of quasi- 
magical effect is, as we have seen, often produced, even as in another 
more elemental and intense form of communion, objective effects are 
sometimes anticipated (pp. 612 sqq.). Certain fundamental ideas 


i analogous to that from endogamy (marriage within the group) to exogamy ; cf. 
further below, p. 629. 

1 Burkitt, op. cit. 47. The Elect disclaims all responsibility for the destructive 
processes which turn the growing grain into bread (45); cf. the attitude to the 
killing of animals (p. 602). 

2Cf. W. Warde Fowler, op. cit. 173, on a tendency of the early Roman priest- 
hood to discourage participation in certain sacred rites. 

3 Cf. Chrysostom, Hom. in Joann. ‘‘ He (Christ) hath given those who desire 
Him ... to eat Him and fix their teeth in His flesh, and to embrace Him and 
satisfy all their love.” As regards the relation between the Eucharist and the 
Mysteries, etc., the occurrence of a number of interrelated conceptions, ranging 
from the crude and sensual (cf., enter alia, the Odes of Solomon) to the most refined 


600 SANCTITY OF ANIMALS 


can be traced throughout; and a distinction can be drawn between 
the part they play in the social and moral development of the group and 
their place in the growth of man’s knowledge of his ability to control 
his environment. That the totem ceremonies have a moral and bio- 
logical value can be shown (see Malinowski, 46); and when the height 
of spiritual religion is reached in the doctrine of the “‘ righteousness ”’ 
which the God of the Universe requires of men, there are implicit therein 
ideas of the interrelations of social, moral, and cosmic order, the 
humblest and rudest beginnings of which can be recognized in the 
religious and magico-religious rites of primitive peoples. See p. 670 sq. 

P. 296. Sanotrry or Domestic ANrmats.—A possible trace of 
extreme respect can perhaps be found in Assyrian (R. Campbell 


Thompson, Semitic Magic, 210 n. 1). Reluctance to kill neat cattle 


except on special occasions has been observed in Arabia (Kremer, 
Studien, ii. 86 sq.), and cattle-killers was a term of reproach for the 
men of Jobar (Wetzstein, ZDMG. xi. 488). In Phrygia it was a 
capital offence to kill a plough-ox (A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 469). On the 
ox as a kinsman—in Hesiod—cf. Gilbert Murray, Rise of Epic wm 
Greece, 62 (1907). In India the cow is regarded as the abode of all 
deities and sages, as sacred as the earth itself, and giver of all things 
necessary for man’s sustenance (Enthoven, Folk-lore of Bombay, 213). 
Various forms and traces of cow-cult are found in Africa.1 The case 
of the Todas (p. 299) is especially important, since, according to W. H. 
Rivers (The Todas, 1906), the dairy ritual is a secondary phase, the 
older religion has atrophied, and even the ritual itself has become 
degenerate. The old gods are remembered chiefly for their part in 
the dairy cult, and the practical religion has its centre in the practical 
interests of food and means of livelihood (see I. King, Devel. of Rel. 
117-24, 236 sq.). As is the general rule, the effective religion is con- 
cerned with the essentials of life, in particular with the uncertainties 
of the food supply—unless, of course, life is easy; and conversely, 
where the religion becomes indifferent to the practical, social, and 
economic problems, the latter tend to become the centre of ideas 
which have a quasi-religious importance for those concerned. Cf. 
the problem (a) of the local Baalim, givers of food, and the national 
Yahweh, and (b) that of saints and welis and the Allah of Islam.? 


and spiritual, finds a very significant analogy in the coexistence of diverse therio- 
morphic and anthropomorphic tendencies a few centuries earlier ; see p. 629. 

1See J. Roscoe, The Northern Bantu, 10 sqq. (the royal cows of the Banyoro 
tribe); Frazer, GB. iii. 247, viii. 35, 37 sqq.; Seligman, JRAT. xiii. 654 sqg. Cf. 
below, p. 602, and the references by G. W. Murray, Journ. of Eg. Arch. xii. 249, 
to the veneration of the cow and the (grammatical) treatment of the cow as a 
person among the Beja. 

2On the economic aspect of religion, see Malinowski, in the Festskrift to 


in tii 4° 5 


ee ee 


THE GOLDEN AGE 601 


On the possibility that totemism may have led to the domestica- 
tion of animals and plants, see Frazer, Tot. Hx. iv. 20 n. 1, who refers 
to Jevons, Introd. to Hist. of Rel. 113 sqq., 210 sqq., and 8. Reinach, 
Cultes, i. 86 sqq. It is quite possible that the ‘‘ magical’ control of 
part of nature was a step in social and intellectual progress (Frazer, 
l.c., cf. GB. i. 245 sq.), and W. R. S. himself insists that an attitude, 
not of fear, but of confidence and rapport, was indispensable before 
man could have taken any upward step (see p. 187). A sympathetic 
rapport is, on psychological grounds, essential for any real know- 
ledge of a process which it is desired to understand,! and this is 
precisely what happens when a close, intimate relationship is 
felt, or is believed to exist, between the one who exercises control 
over some part of nature and that which is controlled. See pp. 586, 
658, 671. 

P. 300. THE GOLDEN AGE (cf. pp. 303, 307).—According to the 
Gilgamesh epic, Engidu, the wild man, lived in the most intimate 
converse with the animals; only after he had mated with one of 
Ishtar’s maidens does enmity begin, and the beasts whom he was 
wont to save from the hunters now flee from his presence (CAH. iii. 
228).2 Old Jewish belief told of the age when man and beasts spoke 
a common language (Charles, on Jubilees, iii. 28). The conception 
of a Golden Age is that of a sympathy with the lower animals and the 
conviction that the world has passed from good to ‘worse, with, in 
the Messianic ideas, the hope of the return of the primitive harmony 
(Skinner, Genesis, 35). Prometheus, who destroyed the Golden Age, 
was also the first to kill an ox (p. 807 n. 5; Roscher, Lew. iii. 3055) ; 
and sacrifice was inaugurated by him as also by the Indian fire-god 
Agni. The Pheenician myth of a deluge followed by sacrifice seems 
to be an echo of the post-exilic narrative in Gen. ix., the anointing 
of sacred stelee with the blood of beasts corresponding to the legalizing 
of the slaughter of animals by the ceremonial restoration of the blood 
(Gen. ix. 4; see Lagrange, 417; Skinner, 159, 169). 

P. 306. THe “ MurpER”’ or Awnimats.—For parallels to the 
Buphonia, see Frazer, Paus. ii. 303, GB. viii. 5 sqq., and the references 
in Stiibe, 233 n., 501; on the mimic “‘ resurrection,” cf. Jane Harrison, 
Themis, 143, 182, who connects it with a rain-charm. For the rite 
at Tenedos (p. 305 and n. 3), see A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 659, 711. In 


Ed. Westermarck (Helsingfors, 1912), 81 sqq., and I. King, op. cit., Index, s.v. 
Food. 

1Cf. C. Lloyd Morgan, Instinct and Experience (1912), 236 sg. (One must 
know “‘ as it were from within,” one must “ be in some measure the object of close 
attention,” etc.) 

2 See C. A. Williams, Legend of the Hairy Anchorite (Univ. of Illinois, 1925). 


€ 


602 AVOIDANCE OF “‘ MURDER ” 


consequence of the sanctity of blood, various measures are as a rule 
taken to avoid responsibility for shedding blood, whether human or 
animal.! (1) Special care will be taken that blood does not fall upon 
the ground (pp. 369 n. 1, 417 n. 5).2. (2) Effusion of blood will be 
avoided by stoning, forcing a man to leap from a height, pouring lead 
down his throat, starvation, suffocation, etc.3 (3) Frequently hunters 
propitiate the animal they propose to kill and eat, or its death is 
bewailed ; so that in various ways the victim is pacified, appeased, 
and the risk of vengeance averted (GB. viii. ch. xiv.). Or (4) responsi- 
bility is shared by the whole community (cf. p. 417 and n. 1). Again 
(5) the animal procures its own death.4 Or (6) the victim presents 
itself as a stranger.’ (7) The victim is both conscious and willing : 
before the Khonds of Bengal sacrifice a human victim for the crops 
they stupefy him with opium or otherwise ensure that he shall not 
resist and appear unwilling (GB. vii. 247). Finally, (8) the task of 
shedding the blood is entrusted to another: the Shawiya-Berbers will 
call in a neighbour to kill an ox or a cow (Folk-lore, xxxiii. 193), and 
the Elect Manichee, in whom is the Light element that is also to be 
found in bread, will neither take nor break it; his food is prepared 
by a disciple (on whose behalf he prays), and he prays to the bread 
solemnly, “‘I neither reaped thee, nor winnowed thee, nor set thee 
in an oven” (Burkitt, Rel. of the Manichees, 23, 45)—vegetable life 
has also a soul (e.g. rice; GB. vii. 189). 

P. 310 and notes 1-3.—On Zeus Asterius, see Farnell, Cults of the 
Greek States, i. 44; A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 545 sg. For Kuenen’s paper 
(n. 3), see Gesammelte Abhandlungen, ed. Budde, 207. On the site 
of Ashteroth Karnaim, see Sir G. A. Smith, #.Bi. s.v. The double 


1 So even in the case of criminals, though here it may be lest their blood stain 
the earth ; see Kreglinger, Etudes sur Vorigine et le devel. de la vie relig. i. T4. 

2 When a priest was officiating at the Holy Communion at the Church of St. 
George (el-Hadr), between Beit Jala and the Pools of Solomon, he spilt some of 
the sacred wine on his foot, thereby wounding it. For his carelessness in handling 
the Saviour’s Blood his wound never healed up and he died, and the stone on 
which it fell acquired wonderful healing properties, and by supernatural means 
repulsed every effort to carry it off (Canaan, JPOS. iv. 79 sq., citing Hanauer, 
Folk-lore, 59). 

3 GB. iii, 243 sq.; see also above, pp. 343 n. 3 (on the Ainos, ef. GB. viii. 183 sq.), 
374 sq. (cf. 417 n. 5), 419, 431, and see Saalschiitz, Mosaisch. Recht, 457 n., 580. 

4 See p. 309 n. 1, and the refs. in Stiibe, 234 n. 505; cf. Wellhausen, Muwh. 7. 
Med.; a willing victim (16) procures its own death (160). The victim comes 
unsought (above, p. 309 n. 1), and in Palestine a flock of sheep will be driven past 
the shrine, and the one that enters ‘“‘ has chosen it” (JPOS. vi. 34; a Sinaitie 
parallel, 7b. 66). 

5 Cf, Gen. xxii. 13 sq., and the story of Lityerses (GB. vii. 217; see ib. 225 on 
strangers, and below, p. 616 n. 4). 


** ASHTAROTH OF THE FLOCK ”’ 603 


peaks have suggested to Schumacher and to G. F. Moore (Journ. of 
Bib. Lit. xvi. 155 sqq.) a simpler explanation, so perhaps already the 
Talmud. For the Punic Saturnus Balcaranensis (c. second century 
A.D.), see Toutain, Mélanges, l.c. (n. 3 end), and note that Saturn 
nowhere has horns; see also Zews, ii. 554 sq. The ‘* Ashtaroth of 
the sheep” (cf. p. 477) is unique. Ishtar as mother-goddess was symbol 
of creation, protector of flocks, patroness of birth; and Jshtardti means 
“* goddesses.’ Cf. ‘‘ Hathors”’ as a title of goddesses of birth 
(Rameses 11.; Breasted, Anc. Rec. iii. §400 and n. 5b), also 7 Trav 
Oe@v “Apmoxpartis (delicice deorum), Pap. Oxyr. xi. 1880 (see Norden, 
Geburt d. Kindes, 112 n. 2); and the Juno as the female counterpart 
of the Roman masculine Genius. The term may be a stereotyped and 
perhaps an original cult term for the young or for the dam (cf. Meyer, 
Gesch, Alt. i. § 346 n.).+ 

P. 311 n. 1.—See Kinship, 254, where W. R. 8. remarks that “* the 
most ancient division of the Israelites is between Rachel and Leah, 
both of whom are animal names—‘ewe’ and ‘ bovine antelope,’ ”’ 
and that among the nomadic population of South Palestine, ultimately 
incorporated with Judah, the most important is Caleb the dog-tribe. 
On Leah, see also 7b. 227 and n. 2. Meyer (Jsraeliten, 426 and n. 3) 
explains Leah as “ serpent’? (comparing Leviathan), pointing out 
that “‘ Leah, like Rachel, is an ancient nwmen in animal shape.” 
The question is complicated by the suggested conrexion between 
Leah and Levi (Kinship, 34 n., 227), and between Levi and the Minzan 
priestly title law?’ a(t), on which see Gray, 243 sqq. 

P. 315.—Classical parallels are cited by Meyer, Israeliten, 556 
n. 1; Eitrem, 422 Sq. 

P. 316. OnoraL(t).—On Dionysus (Herod. iii. 8), 2.e. Dusares, 
see Clermont-Ganneau, Rec. d Archéol. Orient. v. 114. The derivation 
is quite uncertain: (a) oforadr, 1.¢. nbsaay (‘servant of Allat” ; 
Cumont, Rev. Archéol. 1902, p. 297 sq.); 2 (b) oporay, i.e. Ruda (Wellh. 
58 sq.), “‘ favour, grace”’ (see Lidzb. Ephem. iii. 90 sqqg.); the more 
Aramaic form of which is found in the Nabatzan god NN (aappa), 
see Cooke, 239, though Lidzbarski (H’phem. ii. 262) would derive the 


latter from ,¢°, pointing out that “luxuriant” is an appropriate 
name for a god of fruitfulness. From a shrine (X73D) set up to 


1 How a proper name can become a common noun is illustrated in the use of 
“Mary” in pidgin-English for the female sex: women, girls, and dogs (C. W. 
Collinson, Life and Laughter ’midst the Cannibals in South Sea Islands, 86). 

2 Burrows, JSOR. xi. 77, suggests Obodat, and, explaining the name to mean 
“husbandman,” notes that in an Assyrian list of gods (ZA. xxx. 284 sqq.), Du- 
shar-ra (i.e. Dusares) is called wru-a (=erish), which has the same meaning, and 
that Dusares=Orotal (Obodat). 


604 REUNION OF GODS AND MEN 


Dusares—NX— on the first of Nisan (see the Nab. inser.,Lidzb.Ephem. 
ii. 262), it is argued by Hommel ( Vogtié Florileg. 300) that he was a god 
of light of the Marduk type. He, however, explains Nyx to mean 
“having a white spot,” while Littmann (7b. 385) compares the stone- 
block ghariy (cf. above, pp. 201, 210). (c) Meyer (Israel. 101 n. 3) 
rather favours the old view of Blau (ZDMG. xviii. 620 sqq.), that 
Orotal conceals the name of the tribe of the Garinda (Gharandel) 
north of Sinai and of Petra; it was the name (according to Arab 
legend) of an idol ; see Hommel, Hthnol. 627 n. 3. 

P. 321. Reunion or Gops anp Mrn.—Here the main argument, 
which is of the first importance, is suspended, to be resumed on p. 336. 
When, owing to disaster, defeat, etc., the group-unity of gods and 
men is broken, whatever brings the conviction of forgiveness brings 
the sense of a new unity. There may not be any intense experience 
of some immediate “communion” with the deity, but the restora- 
tion of the unity is fundamental in religion, and the actual vicissitudes 
of the history of religions imply that the bond between the worshippers 
and their gods, constantly weakened or broken, is constantly being 
renewed. The fundamental idea, as it occurs in Judaism, is thus stated 
by Abelson, Immanence of God in Rabbinical Literature, 140: ““ Repent- 
ance is almost a synonym for Shechinah. It is a divine indwelling.” 

P. 321 and n. 4.—On the commemoration of Hasan and Hosain, 
see Eerdmans, Zeit. f. Assyr. ix. 280 sqqg.; Goldziher, Moh. Stud. ii. 
331; Baudissin, 131 sg.; Streck, Sachau-Festschrift, 393 Sqq: 3 all 
of whom find survivals of pre-Islamic beliefs. 

P. 321 and n. 5.—From the Arabic kasafa, “ cut,” kisf, “‘ piece, 
fragment,” etc., W. R. 8. conjectures that the Hebrew késhaphim 
means herbs or drugs shredded into a magic brew. For Fleischer’s 
derivation from kasafa, “to obscure,’ see Witton Davies, H.Bi. 
col. 2900(2). An exact analogy to the former etymology is 5$pnn, 
“ pray,’ which Wellhausen (126 n. 5) explains from the Arabic falla, 
‘““to rend,”’ fall, “‘ the notch end of a sword” (H.Bit. “ Prayer,” § 1; 
cf. ‘ Cuttings,” §1). That more physical meanings lie beneath the 
religious terms is seen further in 1ny (a*nyn), “ make supplication,” 
and Arabic ‘atara, “sacrifice”? (Wellh. loc. cit.), and possibly in the 
Hebrew ny, “ roast flesh,” Aram. “ pray”? (so Haupt, Journ. of 
Bibl. Lit. 1900, p. 78, but see the Oxford Heb. Lexicon). Praying is 
bound up with incense offering (see Eitrem, 229 sq.), and prayer and 
sacrifice are interwoven in early Christian thought (Gray, Sacrifice, 
173). Between praying for a thing and appropriate sacrificial ritual 
(whether mimetic, as often in “‘ maygico-religious”’ rites, or other) 
there is no great gulf; see F. B. Jevons, Introd. to the Study of Comp. 
Rel. 176 sqqg. (New York, 1908). 


ee ee ee ee ee eee ee 


MOURNING RITES 605 


P. 323. Mournina Rires.—Often, of course, these may be ‘‘ merely 
exiggerated forms of the same emotional outbursts which lead nervous 
temperaments everywhere to wring the hands and tear the hair in 
moments of violent grief”? (Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples, 
213). Fear of the dead is regarded by Frazer as ‘“‘ a bulwark of 
morality and a bond of society,” softening and humanizing manners 
(Belief in Immortality, i. 175, 392 ; cf. ii. 300); “* the fear of the spirits 
of the dead has been one of the most powerful factors—perhaps, 
indeed, the most powerful of all—in shaping the course of religious 
evolution at every stage of social development from the lowest to the 
highest ” (GB. viii. 36 sq.).1 But W. R. S. disputes the significance 
of fear (pp. 322 n. 3, 336 n. 2, 370 n. 1) ; and Malinowski (ed. Needham, 
47 sqgy.), in a critical estimate of the psychological aspects of death, 
argues that in the mourning ceremonies “ religion counteracts the 
centrifugal forces of fear, dismay, demoralization, and provides the 
most powerful means of reintegration of the group’s shaken solidarity, 
and of the re-establishment of its morale.” 

When the Arab erects a tent on the grave of a venerated person 
and remains there, or the dead are buried in the house or near at 
hand, or there is resort to the dead and appeal to the ancestors, or 
there are periodic festivals of the dead (GB. vi. 51 sqq., ix. 150 sq4.), 
fear is not the dominant element even though there be awe or respect. 
And where group or collective responsibility prevails, the living and 
the dead are virtually parts of one body. On the other hand, in the 
history of Israel individual responsibility and the denunciation of 
earlier mourning customs are among the marks of an age of social 
disintegration prior to the rise of a new reintegration. 

In general, death arouses typical emotions which are variously 
directed by current usage. To-day the evil spirits, the cause of 
illness, surround the dead body and look for a living one in which 
to enter (J POS. vi. 46), and the domestic rites are for the soul of the 
deceased (1b. 65). In one Bab. ritual, when a man is dying the room 
is swept, holy water sprinkled, lights are lit, a lamb is sacrificed, and 
ceremonies are performed for the family spirits (Morgenstern, 107 sq.). 
In Israel a man went to “ his people’’ (Gen. xxv. 8). On the same 
principle the member of a totem-clan rejoins his ancestors at death, 
and sometimes will be buried in the skin of the totem-animal and 
marked with the clan mark (7'ot. Ex. i. 35). Some deaths are specially 
grievous. In Assyria men and women who die prematurely cause harm 
unless they are laid to rest (R. C. Thompson, Semitic Magic, 17 sqq.).? 

1 Similarly, Marillier (Rev. de Vhistoire Rel. xxxvi. 355), Wundt, and others. 


2On the Bab. etimmu-demons, spirits of the dead, see A. Jeremias, Handbuch 
d. altorient. Geisteskultur, 318 sqq. 


606 OBLIGATORY MOURNING 


If the mourning is slight, the dead may be suspicious, and 
take vengeance; hence the survivors will disclaim responsibility 
(above, p. 412), and otherwise mollify the dead. On the other hand, 
too much grief will disturb the dead.t In Central Australia, as 
Durkheim points out (391 sqq.), mourning is strictly regulated by 
etiquette; it is a social and pious duty which forms a channel for the 
emotions, it assures the dead that he is not forgotten, establishes a 
new relation with the dead who is now a new kind of spirit, and 
strengthens the social unity which absence of mourning would weaken.? 

On obligatory mourning (p. 430), see Wensinck in the Sachau- 
Festschrift, 26 sqq.; and on the 6doAvyy, in particular, see EKitrem, 
461 sq., and his Bettrdge, iii. (1920), 44 sqq.; also Jane Harrison, 
Themis, 160 (as an apotropaic lament). As regards the blood-letting 
rites, Frazer (FOT. iii. 300) and Westermarck (Morocco, ii. 520) 
question whether they contain any idea of covenant; the object is 
rather to benefit the dead, who are nourished by the blood (cf. Eitrem, 
421). Blood contains, or rather blood is the life: Assyrian demons 
ceaselessly devour blood, and sacrificial slaughter—thought Origen— 
lures demons to the temples (R. C. Thompson, 195 sq.). But no 
single explanation of mourning rites need be sought. The evidence 
ranges from purely spontaneous emotion, with more or less vague 
ideas of death and the dead, to relatively coherent convictions of the 
efficacy of the rites; and W. R. 8.’s theory of the blood-covenant 
between living and dead gives a precision to the more elemental 
feelings in which the longing for continued relations does not necessarily 
come to the surface, but is justified by that unity of the living and 
dead members of a group which repeatedly expresses itself in many 
diverse ways.4 

P. 325. Harr-Orrerina.—Hair was shorn for rivers (Paus. viii. 
41,3; GB.i. 31), as a puberty rite (A. B. Cook, Zeus, i, 23 sq.), and as 
an offering for the dead (Frazer, FOT'’, iii, 274 ; Eitrem, 344 sqq.). It 
was cut for Osiris and other gods (Chwolson, ii. 307 sq.), e.g. for Heracles, 


1See Hedwig Jahnow, Das hebrdische Leichenlied im Rahmen der Vélkerdich- 
tung (Giessen, 1923), 48 n. 2 (with references). 

2 Cf. the elegant words of Tzti-yu (fourth—third century B.c.): the ceremonial 
is a check upon undue emotion and a guarantee against any lack of proper respect 
—the due regulation of the emotions is the function of a set ceremonial (H. Giles, 
Confucianism and its Rivals, 116). 

3 On the “ magic ” of tears, cf. Canney, Journ. of the Manchester Eg. and Or. 
Soc., 1926, p. 51. , | 

4See, in general, Lagrange, 320 sqqg.; Ocesterley, Immortality and the Unseen 
World (1921), especially chs. ix.-xi. On laceration in particular, see Kinship, 77 
n. 1 (3); Driver, Deut. 156; Frazer, FOT. iii. 270 sqq.; Scheftelowitz, Arch. f. 
Rel, xix, 221 n, 2, 222 n.4; Jahnow, op. cit. 4 sqq., 12 sqq., et passim. 


I ee ee ae a ee sl ug pce 


CONSECRATION OF HAIR 607 


the Tyrian Melkart, at Gades (Hélscher, Profeten, 144, citing Silius 
Italicus, iii. 21 sgq.).1 Cut in honour of Orotal (Herod. iii. 8), this 
“imitation of the god”’ finds abundant parallels (masks, skins, etc., see 
p- 674 sq.), and the question why the god wore his hair in a particular 
way finds a parallel in the question why the gods limped (see p. 672). 
A man’s hair contains his strength, vitality, or vital principle (FOT.. ii. 
484 sqq.), hence the various taboos (GB. iii. 258 sqq.). By means of 
it an enemy can injure a man by “ magical ” practices, and by retaining 
some of a man’s hair one can ensure his remaining with one (FOT. iii. 
254; cf. GB. xi. 103 sq., 148; Cook, Zeus, i. 343 n. 4). Hence the 
sacrifice of one’s hair is a very real one, no less than that demanded 
at Byblus (p. 329, see p. 616). While, on the one hand, among the 
Ewe the priest’s hair must not be cut, because the god dwells in it 
(FOT. iii. 189); on the other, one can dedicate one’s hair for a 
sacred person or purpose, in which case it is given to or saved for the 
god. It is preserved in order that the sacred power may occupy it ; 
or it is renounced, virtually as a sacrifice of oneself.2 The Nazarite’s 
vow is a dedication of one’s self; it being impossible, according to 
Philo, to pollute the altar with human blood (Gray, Numbers, 69).° 
P. 327. FLAGELLATION AND INITIATION CEREMONIES.4—Herein are 
involved (1) the reluctance to admit a new comer into a privileged 
circle, (2) the desire to prove his worth, and (3) the psychology of 
ordeal, pain, and cruelty. Between initiation ceremohies and “ haz- 
ing” there is ultimately no great gulf (Durkheim, 312 and n. 4). The 
trial, often a frightful one, is the characteristic feature; and the 
flagellation and other severities have been variously explained.® 
(1) They are to inspire awe, they are a test of a man’s courage and 
fitness, or they are due to the genuine fear lest the youth should be 
effeminate (Crawley, Mystic Rose, 210 sq.). (2) When aspecial scourge 
or other instrument is used, it may be an actual transference—a 
“rubbing in”’—of its sacred power. Thus among the Kamilaroi tribes 
the touch of the bull-roarer had fertilizing effects, the very sight of the 


1On the shaven heads of Egyptians and Sumerians, see E. Meyer, Gesch. d. 
Alt. i. §§ 362, 368; and especially Gressmann, Budde-Fesischrift, 61 sqq. 

2 Cf. Qy. St. 1893, p. 211: a child whose hair is vowed is under the protection of 
the saint, and needs no amulet. When the hair is cut and sold the money is given 
to the poor; or it is for the makam (the shrine), and the family and relations eat 
together there. 

3 Kitrem (350 n. 2, 351 sq.) would treat hair-offerings as one of the many rites 
de passage. 

4 See Loisy, Sacrifice, ch. x. ; Hocart, Folk-lore, xxxv. 308 sqq. 

5 Cf. Anton Thomsen, Orthia (Copenhagen, 1902); Miss Mudie Cooke, Journ. 
of Roman Studies, iii. (1913) 164 sg.; F. Schwenn, Menschenopfer b. d. Griechen u. 
Rémern, 98 sq. (Giessen, 1915). 


608 INITIATION CEREMONIES 


Dhurumbulum (? bull-roarer) imparted manly qualities (W. Ridley, 
Kam. and other Australian Languages, 140 sq., 156). In the Sandwich 
Islands the newly installed king is struck in order to purify him 
(Crawley, 94). Nilsson (Gr. Rel. 94) holds that the power in the sacred 
bough passes over into the youth as truly as that of the “‘ sowing 
cake’? which was eaten ; it was fundamentally a sort of communion ; 
see also Reinach, Cultes, i. 173 sqq., on the mystic virtues of the hazel 
rod. Psychologically, (3) the ordeal is a ritual purification, a katharsis ; 
suffering gives strength, sorrow has a sanctifying value. (4) More 
crudely, the belief runs that the jinn prefer stout and well-fed people, 
hence violent beating is necessary to drive out the demons (JPOS. 
v. 203). Psychologically again, (5) the ordeal from beginning to end 
serves to induce a unique state prior to the reception of the novice 
within the group. He is taught the customary morality of the tribe 
and learns the tribal legends. He has been prepared for a new stage 
in life—a “‘ renewal,” according to the Kaffir term (Crawley, 271 sq). 
He has experienced the god’s presence (Meek, ii. 88). Sometimes he is 
smeared with blood, or even fed with it (Tot. Hx. i. 42 sq., 174). He 
has been introduced to the god (cf. Durkheim, 285); or there have 
been rites of death and rebirth, and he has died to live.2 In Central 
Australia the boy pierces the veil; he learns that the all-powerful 
being of the tribe is a “‘ myth’”’ ; he handles the bull-roarer and knows 
and sees the most sacred things (Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes, 
491 sqq.; cf. Native Tribes, 248). Similarly, in New Mexico the 
masked men who are representing the gods subsequently disclose 
their identity (Webster, Primitive Secret Societies, 187 sqq.). But 
the revelation of the mysteries does not necessarily destroy religious 
belief.* 

P. 328. Crrcumcision.—For this practice (not found in Babylonia 
and Assyria) various reasons have been put forward (see Toy, §§ 153 
sqq.); and it is necessary to distinguish afterthoughts from possible 
causes. If it were merely hygienic, it would be difficult to see why 
it was deferred until puberty—the supposition that hygienic reasons 
induced the alteration of date from puberty to infancy, like the idea 
of physical purification (Herodotus, ii. 37), is thought to imply more 
observation than is usually found.  Phallicism (on which see p. 688) 


1 See Haddon on ethics among primitive peoples, Expository Times, June 1912 ; 
and on the general social value of initiation ceremonies, see Malinowski (ed. Need- 
ham) 38 sqq., 60. 

2 Cf. GB.i. 76n.3; Hubert and Mauss, Mélanges, 131 sq. 

3 One may contrast the more psychological comments of Marett (Threshold of 
Religion, 157 sqq., 164) upon the effect of the disclosures with those of Loisy 
(Sacrifice, 388 sq.). 


CIRCUMCISION 609 


is certainly an insufficient explanation. The same objection is urged 
against the later popular belief that it prepares for or facilitates sexual 
intercourse (Doughty, i. 341, 410; cf. Loisy, Sacr. 385). It does not 
necessarily entail very great suffering, though at times there are 
fearful ordeals, e.g. in Arabia among the Coraish and Hodhail.? It has 
been regarded as a dedication, the sacrifice of a part in order to ensure 
the safety of the whole (for such practices, cf. Crawley, Mystic Rose, 
136, 300, 309); or it is supposed that by cutting off and preserving 
a part of oneself, one secures preservation after death, and reincarna- 
tion. The shedding of blood seems to be an essential part of the rite 
(cf. Lagrange, 243 sq.), and when, as in Australia, use is made of the 
skin and blood, or the blood is applied to others, ideas of covenant 
may perhaps be recognized.?, So, among the Akikuyu circumcision 
is necessary before one can be a full member of the tribe and possess 
property ; and the rite was at one time combined with a ceremony of 
rebirth (FOT. ii. 332 sq.). In Israel the metaphors of circumcision 
applied to heart, ear, and lips (Deut. x. 16, Jer. vi. 10, Ex. vi. 12) 
suggest that it meant allegiance, dedication, and an intimate 
relation with Yahweh, even as the rite itself was an initiation into the 
full tribal life? The new prominence of circumcision in post-exilic 
Judaism, as a sign of the covenant relation (see Skinner, Gen. 297), 
coming as it does after the prophets’ condemnation of ritual, will be 
due to the new social and religious equilibrium after*the period of 
disintegration that had preceded. Cf. pp. 593, 664. 

In the story of the Exodus the Israelites are circumcised before 
they keep the Passover, and eat of the produce of the land which they 
are about to conquer (Josh. v.; cf. Ex. xii. 43 sqg.). Uncircumcised, 
they would be regarded as polluting Yahweh’s land (on the analogy of 
Ezek. xliv. 7, 9). Both Circumcision and Passover mark new stages 
in the history of Israel, and they are associated in the very obscure 
story in Ex. iv. where Moses was attacked by Yahweh because the rite 
of circumcision had not been performed—on himself, or on his son 
(who is evidently the firstborn). The story is in a context where 
Israel is Yahweh’s firstborn, and Pharaoh’s firstborn is threatened with 
death (iv. 22 sq.). Ultimately Yahweh smites the firstborn of Egypt 
at the Passover, and “‘ passes over” the houses smeared with blood 


1W.R.S., Lectures, 577. Cf. We. 1215, 2174 sqq.; Landberg, Dualectes, i. 485- 
493, 1777 sg. For operations upon Arab women, see Seligman, JRA. xliii. 642 sqq. ; 
Harvard Studies, 149. 

2H. P. Smith, Journ. of Bibl. lit. xxv. (1906) 14; see Spencer and Gillen, 
Native Tribes, 250, 268 sq., Northern Tribes, 334, 361, 372; Frazer, GB. i. 92 sqq. 

3 According to Westermarck (Morocco, ii. 433), circumcision is called ‘‘ cleans- 
ing ” (tuhr, etc.). 


oo 


610 POLYANDRY 


(Ex. xii.) When the Midianite wife of Moses circumcised her child, 
she touched his parts, presumably ‘‘ to connect him with what she had 
done and to make her son’s circumcision count as her husband’s”’ 
(Driver, etc.). But it has also been suggested (Meyer, Israel. 59, 
Gressmann, Mose, 58) that Zipporah was supposed to touch this 
demon-like Yahweh who had sought Moses’ life. Decision is difficult. 
Popular tradition may have retailed much that was primitive concern- 
ing Yahweh’s marriage-relationship with his people, and in Gen. iv. 1, 
Eve “ gets aman with Yahweh” (p. 513). With this archaic 
story may be connected the no less strange story of the wrestling at 
the Jabbok (Gen. xxxii. 24 sqq.), where the passage of Jacob (Israel) 
and his children over the Jordan js a parallel to the passage of the 
Children of Israel into Canaan (CAH. ii. 360), and the importance 
of the rite of circumcision is forthwith maintained at Shechem (Gen. 
xxxiv.). In his wrestling he (7.e. Jacob) was ‘“‘ touched’’ on the 
thigh, whence the “limping”’ (vv, 25>, 31). But according to Hosea 
xii. 4 sq., Jacob “* prevailed’ over his supernatural antagonist, and it 
has been conjectured that it was he who “struck the socket of his 
thigh,” injuring his adversary (v. 25); see B. Luther, ZATW. xxi. 
65 sqq., and on the “ limping” p. 671 sq. below. . 

P. 329 and n. 1. THE ‘Acica AND PotyanpRy.—C. and B. Seligman 
(Harvard African Studies, ii. 148) observe that among the Sudanese 
Kababish the child’s ‘am performed the ceremony of the ‘icca (as 
they heard the word). He and the mother eat separately, and he 
makes a present to the mother, which remains her own property. 
This, in their opinion, supports W. R. 8.’s earlier view in Kinship (182) 
that it is a dissolving of the bond of kindred, and indicates a transition 
from matrilineal to patrilineal descent. According to Lane, the 
‘acica is a ransom, its blood (flesh, bone, skin, hair) being for his blood 
(flesh, bone, etc.); and in this respect it finds a parallel in the old 
Assyrian substitution ceremony for the sick—the head (neck, breast) 
for the head (neck, breast) of the man; see R. Campbell Thompson, 
Semitic Magic, 229; Gressmann, Altorient. Texte z. A.T.?, 330. . 

The bearing of the ‘acica ceremony upon polyandry is much more 
dubious since 1880-81, when W. R. 8. (Lectures, 578), after M‘Lennan, 
arranged exogamy, marriage by capture, female kinship, etc., in a line 
of development. Polyandry proves to be exceptional among simpler 
peoples.! It is confined to a few areas, or to more or less exceptional 
classes. The Levirate is not necessarily a survival of it, though there 
is ““ some reason to believe that among the Semites blood-brotherhood 
sometimes implied community of women,” which, however, is not 

1 Hobhouse, Wheeler, and Ginsberg, Material Culture and Social Institutions of 
the Simpler Peoples, 163. 


THE SACRIFICE OF CHASTITY 611 


necessarily a relic of polyandry. Strabo’s story of the stick which 
a man left outside the woman’s door as a signal for his brothers (Kin- 
ship, 158) is entirely in agreement with custom in South Malabar and 
elsewhere (Westermarck, 129, 138, where knives or weapons are left). 
The * absolute licence ”’ that prevailed (Kinship, 206) is not necessarily 
a survival of earlier marriage customs or of promiscuity, and some 
(e.g. Néldeke, ZDMG. xl. 155) would speak of it as looseness or ‘‘ mere 
prostitution.” In the South Arabian inscriptions there are cases 
where a man has two fathers,? while at the present day among the 
Shilluk a man has a qualified right of access to his brother’s wife, and 
among the Bahima there are polyandrous practices among men too 
poor to get separate wives for themselves (as also in Arabia, see Kin- 
ship, 151 sq.). Hartmann (/slam. Orient, ii. 197 sqq.) is sceptical of 
the South Arabian evidence,’? but C. and B. Seligman (op. cit. 141 n.) 
consider that the evidence for Arabian polyandry cannot he ignored, 
though it was local and occasional, and it is improbable that it was 
at all universal in Arabia. 

» P. 329. THe SacriricE or Cuastiry.t—The compulsory sacrifice 
by virgins of either their hair or their chastity is, as Hartland has 
shown, not to be confused with ce1emonial defloration, or with cere- 
monial prostitution, or licentious rites in connexion with a temple, 
or with prostitution as a recognized means of earning a dowry. This 
last is one of other indications of the slight value frequéntly attached 
to chastity before marriage, often to be followed by the strictest 
fidelity after marriage.® In fact, it sometimes happens that a girl 
who has been much sought after (and, among the Laplanders, especi- 
ally by strangers) is the more highly esteemed. But money might be 
obtained in this way for a temple, and the hieroi or hierodouloi (see 
ERE. s.v.) dedicated to the temple were employed to work upon the 
temple-lands or in the manner indicated.* It is not clear whether the 
temple-harlots remained in the sacred precincts; in Gen. xxxviii. 


1 Westermarck, History of Human Marriage (1921), vol. iii. ch. xxix. sq., and 
ab. pp. 208, 238. 

2 Cf. Kinship, 316; Landberg, Arabica, iv. (1897), 255 sqq., Dialectes, ii. 367, 
845 sqq., 947 sqq.; Glaser and Weber, MV AG. 1923, ii. 41 sqq. 

3 Hartmann (ii. 200) would explain cases of the type, ‘‘ X son of Y and Z,” 
as Y the father and Z the uncle or some other near relative. 

4 See especially E. 8. Hartland, in the Tylor Essays (1907), 189-222, reprinted 
in his Ritual and Belief (1914), 266 sqq., also Frazer, GB. v. ch. iii. sq.; Meyer, 
Gesch, Alt. i. §10 sq. ; Farnell, Greece and Babylon, 269 sqq.; Crawley, Mystic Rose ; 
Clemen in the Baudissin-Festschrift, 89 sqq.; Penzer, Ocean of Story, i. Appendix 
IV.; Briffault, The Mothers (1927), passim. 

5 On which cf. M. A. Potter, Sohrab and Rustem, 164 sq., 167 sqq. 

6 Justin (xviii. 5) speaks_of the virgins at Cyprus who were sent to the sea-shore 


612 HIERODULES IN PALESTINE 


Tamar, the kedéshah, is in the street. Nor are the relevant Baby- 
lonian terms free from ambiguity : harimtu, kadishtu, ishtaritu, though 
the first, unveiled and unmarried, is “‘ of the street,’ and the second 
was a hierodule, veiled, and could nurse or adopt children.t At all 
events, as Jastrow suggests, the maidens of Ishtar (herself usually 
called by the second term) “‘ may well be the prototypes of the houris 
with whom Mohammed peopled the paradise reserved for true be- 
lievers ”’ (Rel. Bel. 138). 

The highly significant law in Deut. xxiii. 17 sq., forbidding the 
hire of a harlot (zonah) or a dog (kéleb) to be brought into the Temple, 
is to be supplemented by the prose appendix to the poem on Tyre 
(Isa. xxiii. 15 sqq.), where the city which once had commerce over the 
known world (cf. Ezek. xxvii.) becomes a forgotten harlot, subsequently 
to have fresh commerce with the kingdoms of the world, when her 
gains will be “‘ sacred’’ to Yahweh and for the enrichment of his 
priestly people. The language, occurring as it does in a relatively 
late addition, is surprising; but it testifies to a well-understood 
practice which may be interpreted possibly as prostitution on 
behalf of the funds of the temple, or as a reference to licentious rites 
at certain religious festivals perhaps due to certain ideas of the efficacy 
of intercourse with hierodules. Decision will often be difficult; it 
must suffice to refer to the initial and concluding rites at Mecca (on 
which see Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 185 sq., 297 sq.. 306 sq.), the 
Pallades of Theban Ammon (@B. ii. 135), the “‘ wives ”’ of the Dahomey 
god (ii. 149), and the Tamil devadasvs (v. 61). 

There is much miscellaneous evidence for the exchange of wives, 
among primitive peoples, as a means of welding together the group 
(Crawley, 248 sq., 479; Potter, 145 sqq.), also to avert some evil, ward 
off sickness, remove a threat, and more specifically to symbolize an 
entire change of circumstances and inaugurate a new life (Crawley, 
280 sqq., 477 sq.). Licentious orgies thus served, on the one hand, 
to express the manifestation of group unity, the creation of feelings 
of absolute oneness, and a new strengthening of social ties ;* and, on 
the other, to annul existing conditions and initiate a new stage. In 
Morocco maidens will be sent as a means of compelling a state of 
to earn their dowry by prostitution, so as to pay a first-offering to Venus for their 
virtue henceforth—pro reliqua pudicitia libamenta Veneri soluturas (Farnell, 274). 

1B. Brooks, AJSL. xxxix. 187; Jastrow, JAOS. xli. 36 n., 34; Campbell 
Thompson, CAH. 1.2 538 sq. 

2 Tamar is spoken of as both kedéshah and ‘“‘ harlot ” (Gen, xxxviii. 15). For 
references in the Minzan inscriptions to hierodules, see Hommel, Ethnol. 143, 
603 sq., 683, and the translation in Gressmann, Altorient. Texte z. A.T.2 463 sq. 

3 Durkheim, 216 n., 383 nn. 1, 2; Malinowski (ed. Needham), 61, 

4 Hartland, Primitive Paternity, ii. 144 sqq., 150, 155, 175, 


33 


** SACRED ” RITES AND RIGHTS 613 


brotherhood with a family or tribe.!| Through the woman a unity is 
established whether within the group itself or between two groups. 
Ideas of group-unity recur also in those endogamous communities where 
there is the closest intermarriage-in order to preserve and strengthen 
all that which makes the group a single unit. In certain 
cases all the male members of a group possess common rights over the 
women either of their group or of another clearly defined group; thus 
when one of a Masai ‘“‘ age-grade”’ marries, the others may claim 
priority of intercourse.2 The usage has been explained as a cere- 
monial access, a survival of original communal rights, or else as a 
removal of the dangers supposed to attend the first night of marriage 
(Crawley, 309, 349; see further below). But other ideas may have 
operated, enhancing the unity of the group of which she was a member. 

The belief has prevailed that special benefits are to be derived 
from intercourse with “ sacred’’ men; e.g. with saints (Westermarck, 
Morocco, i. 198); while in childless families among the Karalits the 
angekok will be invited to sleep with the wife (Crawley, 350), and child- 
less women have ever continued to visit the shrines in the East.* Of 
another type is the statement that among the Takhtaji of the Adana 
district the “‘ high priest’? enters any house, and “‘ the owner con- 
cedes to him during his stay all rights over property, children, and 
wives.” * There are, broadly, two types of cases: in one the efficacy 
of sacred men (who are primarily in some way representatives of the 
supernatural powers) is pre-eminent; in the other, such individuals 
claim special rights which, in fact, are often quite freely granted to 
them. But ceremonial orgies, group-rights, and the efficacy of sacred 
men cannot be viewed apart from the utilitarian ideas that rule among 
primitive peoples as regards the fertility of nature. Sexual language 
and sympathetic ritual abound. A Sumerian liturgy invoking a flood 
of waters to bring rain is couched in the language of sexual inter- 
course (J AOS. xli. 143, 148). On beliefs and practices touching the 
sympathetic fertility of women and of nature, see Hartland, Prim. 
Pat. ii. 115 sqg., 151 sg., 171; and on symbolic unions, 1b. 210 sq., 
236 sqq., and Frazer, GB. vii. 111.5 Hence the many obscene agri- 

1 Westerkmarck, Ritual and Belief in Morocco, i. 529 sq. 

2 Tot. Ex. ii. 415 sqg.; Hartland, Prim. Pat. ii. 193 sq., and Prim. Law, 64 ; 
Crawley, 348 sq. 

3On all this as a story or motif, see Marmorstein, Arch. f. Rel. xxi. 502 sqq. ; 
and O. Weinreich, Der Trug des Nektanebos (Leipzig, 1911). 

4See Sir William Ramsay (The Expositor, Nov. 1906, 466 sqq.), who observes 
that he is evidently the old priest king of primitive Anatolian religion, who “ exer- 
cises in a vulgarized form the absolute authority of the god over all his people.” 

5 See also GB. i. 140 sqq., ii. 97, v. 67 (marriage of wives to an African serpent- 
god to make the crops sprout) ; cf. above, p. 515. 


{ 


614 CEREMONIAL CHASTITY 


cultural rites, and the modern practice of the fellahin of Upper Egypt 
of placing in their vegetable patches figures (male, but more often 
male and female) emblematic of fertility. So, actual ceremonial 
licentious cults are practised to further the fertility of the soil (GB. v. 
39n. 3; Clemen, 95); it may be as part of the marriage of Sun-god and 
Mother-Earth (near North Guinea, GB. ii. 98 sq.), or for the general 
prosperity of the clan (Tot. Hz. ii. 602 sq.); cf. above, p. 514. And, 
whereas in departmental totemism certain clans have each a peculiar 
identity with a particular department of nature, here the ideas are 
vague and inchoate: man and nature are one, the group and its world 
form one unit, and the ideas of natural fertility and human welfare 
are not differentiated. 

Yet, as has been seen, the ideas of sanctity and holiness can never 
be left out of the reckoning ; and ceremonial continence and chastity 
are no whit less conspicuous than sexual excess and orgy. ‘‘ Contrary 
to what one would expect, in savagery sexual cults play an insignificant 
role’? (Malinowski, 41). There is continence when warriors are at 
war (GB. iii. 164), on visiting a sanctuary, on trading-journeys, in 
times of crisis—in general there are ‘‘ taboos ’”’ of this sort when the 
group is in a “‘sacred’”’ state, or when supernatural help is required. 
There is abundant evidence for the belief in the superior efficacy of 
chaste and pure individuals as holders of “‘ sacred” offices, or on 
occasions that are “‘sacred’’ from the group’s point of view, ¢.g. 
when the cattle are at pasture among the Akamba and Akikuyu.* 
The devotee of the deity is chaste and devoted wholly to his (or her) 
service ; on the other hand, the “ wife”’ of a god could be taken by 
those who served or represented the gods. It would be difficult to 
argue that ceremonial licentiousness was “‘ earlier’? than ceremonial 
chastity, or the reverse. The chaste individual was the abode of 
supernatural power, whereas the licentious rites could be regarded as an 
intensely emotional communion or identity of the individual with the 
supernatural power immanent in the group.. While the licentious cults 
soon became more than obnoxious, the extremes of chastity have also 
tended to be anti-social; and between “‘ ceremonial ”’ and ‘‘ magical ” 
tendencies in each of these, progressive humanity has picked its way. 
It is a striking fact that, while the licentious cults were typically 
‘* magico-religious,” viz. for the fertility of nature, chastity and con- — 
tinence were noticeably “‘ taboos’’ on occasions when food-supply, 
success of expeditions, etc., were at stake; and the former could not 
lead—as the latter actually did—to increased efficiency in the non- 
religious sphere. 


1 FOT. iii. 141 sq. See Fehrle, Die Kultische Keuschheit im Altertum (Giessen, 
1910) ; A. D. Nock, Arch. f. Rel. xxiii. 27 n. 11, 28 n. 4, 30. nn. 8, 9, 32 n. 8, 33 n. 1. 


JUS PRIMA NOCTIS 615 


Competent observers (cf. Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, 
i. 170 sqq.) agree that among rudimentary peoples feelings of delicacy 
and bashfulness (whether real or ceremonial) are by no means absent 
as regards sexual matters. Taboos where women are concerned are 
in some degree due to a fear both of the transmission of the weaker 
feminine characteristics and of one so psychologically different from 
men (cf. Marett, Threshold, 94). For a variety of reasons there is a 
general fear of the marriage night; for example, it is often believed 
that evil spirits are unusually active at marriages, and accordingly 
there are ceremonies, especially upon the first night and the following 
day, in order to ward off evil. The inculcation of continence on the 
first night, enjoined by the Fourth Council of Carthage in 398 a.D., is in 
keeping with a practice of abstention found in many parts of the world, 
and justified on grounds ranging from good manners to the belief that 
the first night is dedicated to God.2 In Brittany the first three nights 
were devoted respectively to God, the Virgin, and the husband’s 
patron saint (FO7'. i. 503), and elsewhere it has been believed that 
according to the duration of the continence will be the superiority of 
the child that is born. The Church of the Middle Ages interwove the 
inculcation of continence on the first night with the story of Tobit and 
Sarah in the Apocrypha (FOT’ i. 497 sq., 517 sqq.). But in return for 
certain payments the Church would allow newly married couples to 
ignore this rule. The bearing of this on the so-called jus prime 
noctis is discussed at length by Sir James Frazer, who argues that there 
is no real basis for the “‘ monstrous fable” that a feudal lord or 
ecclesiastical dignitary could claim the wives of his tenants or sub- 
ordinates. There has been, he urges, a confusion of (a) the fine which 
a tenant or vassal paid to his feudal lord for the right of giving his 
daughter in marriage, and (b) the true jus prime noctis, sold to the 
husband by an ecclesiastical authority, which permitted him to sleep 
with his wife on the wedding night (530). On the other hand, the 
former of these, the compensation for the loss of a woman’s services, 
especially when she married away from the manor (493 sq.), is at the 
least a very noteworthy indication of the rights which could normally 
be claimed under what was known as the merchet (marchet). If there 
was room for abuse here, still more was there when chiefs took women 
with the greatest freedom from among their subjects, and the utmost 


1 Frazer, POT. i. 520 sqq. ; Penzer, ii. 306 n. 1. 

2 Frazer, FOT. i. 485 sqq., on the jus prime noctis. Among the Narrinyeri of 
South Australia it is a point of decency for the couple to keep apart for the first 
two or three nights ; among earlier tribes of Canada such self-control was a proof 
that the couple married out of friendship and not to satisfy their passions (Frazer, 
506, 512 sqq. ; Crawley, 344). 


616 JUS PRIMA NOCTIS 


claims might be made to all marriageable women.t And as regards 
the Church, in adding her blessing to the ceremony she normally 
tended to remove from the superstitious all fear of untoward conse- 
quences, and the use made of the Story of Tobit goes to show how 
powerful a part she played in the supernatural ideas (“‘ religious’ or 
‘* magical ’’) which were centred upon the first night. 

Sir James Frazer’s analysis makes it increasingly improbable that 
the jus prime noctis ever prevailed as a recognized or established cus- 
tom, but it does not follow that the jus in the popular sense was never 
practised. On the contrary, the rights of overlords and the powers 
ascribed to or claimed by priests in touch with the supernatural realm 
would favour the sporadic practice of what would be as much a scandal 
and an abomination to some as it would be intelligible to others who 
held cruder ideas of the ways of warding off evil, or of obtaining goodly 
offspring—for, paradoxically, continence and ceremonial intercourse 
could seem, each from its own point of view, equally efficacious.?_ In- 
deed, such have been the feelings and fears touching the first night 
that for this and other reasons there has been resort to ceremonial 
defloration.? Thus, a man was sometimes remunerated for performing 
what was a dangerous service (GB. v. 59 n. 2); he is “ sometimes 
reported to be a priest’ (60 n. 1). Sometimes a stranger would be 
preferred, and the fact that at the compulsory sacrifice of chastity at 
Byblus, Babylon, and Cyprus the man is a stranger finds various 
explanations. 

From the foregoing it will be seen that it is difficult to interpret the 
exact meaning and implication of any single or isolated piece of evi- 
dence. It is clear that the sacrifice of chastity was not necessarily 
valued more highly than that of hair (as at Byblus, see p. 607), and the 
fanaticism with which the licentious cults were maintained at Baalbek- 
Heliopolis to the fourth century 4.D. (see A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 550, 554) 


1 For this, see Hartland, Prim. Pat. 1. 123, 132 sq., 188, 202, 240; cf. ERE. iii. 
815. 

2On the allegation that when the Jews were persecuted under Trajan and 
Hadrian every bride was first given to the Roman ezparimens or tiphsar, see 
J. Neubauer, MV AG. 1919, iii. 59; Krauss, Rev. d’ Etudes Juives, xxx. 38; 
I. Levi, ib. 220 sq., 231. 

3GB.v.57; Toy, §165n.1; FOT.i.534n,.1; Déller, 75. 

4 Thus, the stranger is less likely to take any further advantage ; he would not 
have the same fear of supernatural consequences ; strangers as such are sometimes 
feared, and sometimes regarded as divinely sent (Budge, Book of Governors, 557, 
a fisherman casts his net into the Tigris in the name of strangers). See Farnell, 
274 and n. 4 (note at Iconium the story of the strangers who are slain, 273 [Et. 
Mag. s.v. ‘Ixévov]), For general ideas concerning strangers, see (besides GB, 
index) Westermarck, Moral Ideas, ii. ch, xxiv. ; Morocco, i. 540 sqq. 


*“MARRIAGE’”” AND “‘ HARLOTRY ” 617 


indicates how deep-seated were the tendencies which, mutatis mutandis, 
had long before aroused the Hebrew prophets. Now the rites which 
the prophets condemn are associated with the cult of the Baalim, to 
whom was due the fertility of the land. Among the Hebrews religion 
and sexuality tended to be so intertwined as to become at times almost 
an obsession (Ezek. xvi.): love of money and love of the beauty of 
women were the two great dangers for Israel—so wrote the late writer 
of the Testament of Judah (xvii. 2). Hence, in view of the usual 
relationship between sensuous language, eroticism, and religion (cf. 
the Song of Songs and its allegorical interpretation), if resort to 
other gods was harlotry, the cult of Yahweh (or of Baal as Yahweh) 
would be “ marriage.”’ With the god as the “ husband”’ of people 
and land, and as the direct or indirect cause of birth, the rites which 
Hosea and other prophets denounce are no mere excrescences easily 
removed, but an integral part of the old religion. Buchanan Gray 
(Sacrifice, 95) does, it is true, call the offerings in Hosea ii. and iv. 
“‘ eucharistic,” and he comments on the “ mirth”? (Hos. ii. 11)— 
hardly an unambiguous word in itself. But if the functions of the 
** sacred ’’ men and women, and the immoral cults as a whole, are not 
interpreted as gross immorality, they are to be regarded as in some 
sense practical and utilitarian from current points of view. Even the 
very sanctuary which the barren Hannah visited was served by priests 
of illustrious (Mosaic ?) origin whose conduct with the temple-women 
led to their downfall (1 Sam. ii. 22); and unless the prophets are to be 
charged with exaggerating the conditions, the less famous centres of 
cult of their day were no better. 

Late tradition—scarcely an invention—even reports that a seven 
days’ sacrifice of chastity before marriage was an ‘‘ Amorite custom ”’ 
(Test. of Judah, xii.). This goes much further than ritual licentious- 
ness in connexion with agricultural festivals, and closely unites Pales- 
tine with Baalbek, Cyprus, and Babylon. There is no actual evidence 
that there was such a sacrifice—perhaps the counterpart of the circum- 
cision of the male; but it is tempting with Farnell (281, cf. 279) to 
compare the consecration of the firstfruits of the harvest in order to 
remove the taboo, a rite recognizably of the same world of ideas as 
circumcision (above p. 609). And there is much also to be said for his 
suggestion that the “‘ sacred’? men and women “ were the human 
vehicles for diffusing through the community the peculiar virtue or 
potency of the (gcd or) goddess, the much-coveted blessing of human 
fertility.” 1 If this were so, the firstborn would naturally be regarded 
as more sacred than the rest. And in fact the firstborn were Yahweh’s, 


1 Farnell himself (282) confines his suggestion to the temple-women and the 
mother-goddess, 


3 


618 ‘* PHYSICAL’? AND “* SPIRITUAL’? IDEAS 


peculiarly his own, and to be redeemed; and a connexion between 
the kedéshim, etc., and the ideas concerning the firstborn may be 
suspected. The more spiritual and the more crude types of religion 
have their own convictions as to the way whereby marriages can be 
made fruitful; and while the religion of the Old Testament lays 
emphasis upon Yahweh as the source of his people’s increase and 
welfare, the prophets are an unintelligible phenomenon unless there 
were deep-rooted ideas utterly repugnant to their convictions of 
spiritual religion, and to the simpler stories which, with all their naiveté, 
inculcate spiritual ideas antagonistic to those more “‘ magical” or 
‘* magico-religious ’’ ideas which inform the rites and practices of the 
old religion (cf. CAH. iii. 473 sq.). The crude rites are the “‘ physical ”’ 
counterpart (or prototype) of the more “ spiritual ”’ conceptions of the 
interrelation of man and nature. The “ sacred” officiants stood for 
ideas of holiness, and “‘ holiness?’ means “ kinship” (p. 549); these 
ideas the prophets spiritualized and the Jewish priesthood systematized. 

The reformed religion (Judaism) was purged of its earlier grossness 
and excesses, but the Temple and Priesthood still maintained the 
almost ‘‘ magico-religious ’? convictions of their supreme significance 
for the world. Rabbinical Judaism inherited them, with important 
modifications. ‘The ideas were being cleansed ; but they go back to 
rude beginnings—the supreme importance of “‘ sacred’ individuals for 
the social or cosmic system of which they are part (see p. 658). If 
W. BR. S.’s main position is sound, it is to be expected that the essential 
ideas of communion (fellowship, kinship, identity) were not confined 
to sacrifices, animal and vegetable, but that there would be an inter- 
relation between the “‘ physical ’’ rites and the “ spiritual ”’ ideas (cf. 
p. 439); there would be strange paradoxes (the sacrifice of chastity, 
and chastity as a sacrifice), and there would be a fundamental inter- 
connexion of “lower” and “ higher” tendencies, although, on the 
other hand, the evolution is not so simple as he assumed. 

P. 331. Harr ry Vows.—On the hair-offering by Arab pilgrims 
(halk) see Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 291 sqqg. W. R.S.’s explanation 
of para‘, “‘ let the hair grow loose” (Judg. v. 2; see especially Burney’s 
commentary), revives an old conjecture (so Moore, Judg. 138), for 
which there is an Arab parallel (Bevan, cited by Wellh. 123 n. 2). 
Gilbert Murray (Rise of Epic in Greece, 123 [1907]) compares the descrip- 
tion of the Achezans in the Iliad, “ letting their hair grow long ”’ (xapn 
Kopdevres), as a vow to take Troy. On the cult of Ocaisir (note 
2), see Wellh. 62 sq.; Winckler, Arab.—Semit.—Orient. 132, s.v. In 
note 3 the Inca sacrifice has not been verified. Frazer (GB. i. 318) cites . 
the custom of the Yucatan Indians of pulling out their eyelashes and 
blowing them towards the sun—but this is in order to stay its course. 


' TATTOO MARKS 619 


For the shaving of the eyebrows, Eitrem (412) cites Roman parallels. 
In CIS. i. 257-259 a man is described as nbs: 355, an indication 
of the sacred calling of the barber in Pheenician temples. The shaving 
of the widow (Deut. xxi. 12) is one of various rites symbolizing the end 
of one stage and the beginning of another ; cf. also Wellh.1 156 (where 
W.R.S. adds in his copy references to Rasm. Add. 69; Raghil, ii. 133). 
Another rite de passage is seen in the ihram (cf. We. 122, Gaudefroy- 
Demombynes, 170 sqq.). 

_ P. 334. Tatrroo Marxs.—These, when found among primitive 
peoples, though usually significant, are not necessarily imitations of 
totems, etc. (Frazer, Tot. Hx. i. 26-30, iv. 197 sqq.). But they will 
testify to the fact that all individuals similarly marked participate in 
the same rites (Durkheim, 232), or are members of the same group 
(social, secret, etc.). On the connexion between a tattoo or dis- 
tinguishing mark and covenants, see Kinship, 250. So, the marks com- 
monly denote devotion to, or possession by, a god, and the Egyptians 
would brand captives with the name of the god, or the (divine) 
king (Breasted, iii. § 414, iv. § 405). Slaves in Babylonia were tattooed 
with some name, and in the Elephantine papyri they are “‘ marked ”’ 
(nv), apparently with a ydd.1 The priests of Isis had cross-like 
marks on their foreheads (see Norden, Geburt des Kindes, 28 and n. 4), 
and Syrian Christians who have been to Jerusalem are tattooed with 
the cross (O. H. Parry, Six Months in a Syrian Monastery, 63). See 
further, p.675; and for much useful material, Turnbull, Blood Covenant, 
218; Frazer, FOT. i. 78 sq.3 Pedrizet, Archiv f. Rel. xiv. 54 sqq., 
especially 100 sg., 109, 112, 117. 

P. 337.—The rite is called nagd, W. R.S., Lectures, 583; cf. Curtiss, 
191 (an incident near Nablus). 

P. 339. ““ Living”? FriresH.—The general principle is that the 
sacrifice must be eaten while still alive and quivering, before its virtues 
have left it. Even when sacred food is not eaten fresh, it must not 
be allowed to putrefy or ferment (pp. 221 n., 387).2, Though the much- 
quoted Saracenic rite stands alone, the principle is a simple one, and in 
Mexico the living representatives of the fire-god were thrown into the 
fire, taken out, and their still palpitating hearts torn from their bodies 
(GB. ix. 301). W.R.S. points out that either all share in and devour 
the sacrifice in its entirety (p. 338 n. 1), or there are modifications, 
some of which are due partly to a softening of manners (p. 342 sq.) ; 
the most sacred parts are reserved for the more sacred caste, or they 


1 See Code of Hammurabi, § 226 sg.; Johns, Bab. and Ass. Laws, 177; 8S. A. 
Cook, Moses and Hammurabi, 159; Cowley, Aramaic Papyri, No. 28. 

2 Also the blood brought before the altar was stirred to prevent it from coagu- 
lating (cf. also Moore, #.B1. “‘ Sacrifice,” § 46 and n. 3). 


620 ** PERFECT ’’ OFFERINGS 


are otherwise disposed of in some special manner (p. 386), thus the 
entrails, etc., become the food of demons (see Kitrem, p. 424 sq.), who 
are supposed to eat raw flesh (cf. p. 541). 

Properly, the victim must be complete and perfect. Tainted or 
imperfect victims should not be offered (Mal. i. 7 sq., see CAH. iii. 
449 sq.), and the sacrificial offering should be without blemish (Lev. 
xxii. 19 sqqg.). That is to say, “‘ the sacred life should be completely 
and normally embodied ” (p. 361). The priest, too, should be without 
blemish (Lev. xxi. 17 sgq.); similarly in Babylonia.t The principle 
rules throughout that the more perfect is the more potent, and the 
sacred power resents contact with that which is not sacred. It enters 
only into the priest or the sacrificial victim, which, like itself, is 
““sacred.”” The fundamental idea is expressed in ways that range 
from the crudest to the most spiritual (Jer. xv. 19; Isa. lvii. 15). It 
lies at the bottom of liver-divination, where the animal selected for 
the purpose, pure and complete in every respect, becomes the em- 
bodiment of the deity, whose purposes are read by an expert examina- 
tion of its liver, the organ of thought (Jastrow, Rel. Bel. 148, 155 sq.). 
And in the extremes of magic and of mysticism it will be believed 
that the correct ritual must necessarily secure the union of man and 
deity. 

With the foregoing are bound up three distinct and far-reaching 
groups of ideas. (1) The conviction is widespread that the physical 
state at death determines the physical state in which one is reborn or 
lives in another existence.?, Hence (a) the endeavours both to pre- | 
serve intact the body of a dead friend and to mutilate a dead enemy ; 
and (b) the spiritual counterpart: the moral state at death conditions 
the state after death. (2) Men whose physical powers are waning will 
sometimes desire to be put to death in order to ensure rebirth in a 
suitable physical condition. (3) The physical condition of men is 
sometimes believed to be due to the good or bad relations between 
them and supernatural powers—e.g. remarkable strength and virility, 
or disease and suffering. And when certain men perform sacred 
functions (as priests, priestly kings, magicians) their strength is a 
matter of supreme importance. They must fulfil certain conditions 
(observe taboos, etc.) in order to be able to function successfully, and 
their failure or the occurrence of disasters can be ascribed to their 
impotence and interpreted as a proof that they no longer enjoy the 


1 J. Jeremias, /.Bi. col. 4119; Zimmern, KAT. 534; Lagrange, 223 sq. 

2In Palestine the sacrificial sheep must be faultless and without mutilation, 
so that on the Day of Judgment it may reappear perfect and able to save the man 
on whose behalf it was offered (J POS. vi. 41). 

3 Cf., e.g., Procopius, Goth. ii. 14 (cited by Chadwick, Heroic Age, 411). 


UNCLEAN ANIMALS 621 


favour or help of the supernatural powers. The slaying of the 
“ sacred king”’ has become, thanks to Frazer’s Golden Bough, one of 
the most remarkable and significant discoveries of anthropological 
research. The weakness—physical, ritual, or moral—of the ‘‘ sacred ”’ 
man is a danger to his group and land, and whatever is interpreted as 
an indication thereof will be regarded as a warning that his period of 
usefulness is over; and conversely, steps will be taken to ensure that 
his condition is not likely to be prejudicial to people or land, hence 
his reign is a limited one, or he must defend himself against all comers, 
etc. Theoretically, all members of the group are “ sacred,”’ and on 
their fitness depends the welfare of the group and all that is bound 
up with it; but in practice particular individuals, by reason of their 
functions, have a heavier responsibility. Cf. pp. 549, 591. 

P. 342.—On ‘Arafa, see Wellhausen, 82; and on the ifada, Gaude- 
froy-Demombynes, 260. 

P. 357. UNcLEAN ANIMALS.—On the animals in question, see the 
Index, also H#.Bi. s.vv. and art. ‘“‘ Clean,” §§ 7 sqg. On the pig, see 
also Baudissin, 142 sqq., 529, and the references in R. Campbell 
Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, ii. p. xlvii; Sem. Magic, 
208 ; G. Hélscher, Die Profeten, 376 sq. In Babylonia the pig was the 
sacred animal of Ninurta and Gula ; and, while eaten at certain special 
feasts, was taboo on the 30th of the fifth month (Prince, J.B.L. xliv. 
156). The heart of a pig and of a dog formed part of a sacrifice to evil 
spirits (Morgenstern, 118, and n. 5). On the dog, see also Baudissin 
(s.v. Hund) and Zimmern in the Noldeke-Festschrift, ii. 962 n. 3 (in 
the dedication of a new image to the Moon-god). For the Harranian 
‘lord with the dogs” (above, p. 291), see ZA. xi. 242 sg. At the 
present day it is sometimes a sin to kill a dog (Parry, Siz Months ina 
Syrian Monastery, 71), and the worship of a large black dog with annual 
licentious rites is found among the Kizil-Bashi (G. R. Driver, Bulletin 
of the School of Or. Stud., London, ii. 2, 198). On the dog and mouse, 
see Hélscher, op. cit. 378 sq.; and on the latter, Z.A. xiv. 206, 250; Jacob, 
Altarab. Parallel. 11.. Camel’s flesh is tabooed food (above, p. 283 sq.), 
and it is a great insult in Mosul to say that a man eats of it (Campbell 
Thompson, Sem. Magic, 210 n. 1). 


1 See, in addition, on the killing of the Khazar kings (in South Russia), Frazer, 
Folk-lore, xxviii. 382-407. For the important Dinka evidence, see Seligman, JRAT. 
xliii. 664 sqq., 673, and ERE. s.v., and for evidence from the northern tribes of 
Nigeria, see C. K. Meek, i. 255, ii. 59 sgg.; the king must not be ill or grow old. 

2See also Westermarck, Moral Ideas, ii. 609 sg. (in Morocco a pretender’s 
baraka usually lasts only six months), and Landtman, The Origin of Priesthood 
(Ekenaes, Finland, 1905), 41 sq., 64 sqg., 143 sg. (priests become chiefs through their 
supernatural powers ; losing them, they are deposed and killed). 


622 ANIMAL-NAMES AND TOTEMISM 


P. 357. TorEmism AnD ANnImMAL-NameEs.1—Besides the references 
to the sacrifice and worship of animals described in the Deutero- Isaiah 
and Ezekiel, of particular interest is the appearance, at about the same 
age (viz. at the time of the discovery of the book of the Law in 
Josiah’s reign), of leading temple-personages bearing the names 
Shaphan (coney or rather rock-badger), Achbor (mouse), and Huldah 
(weasel or mole). It is, however, a recognized fact that animal-names 
in themselves do not necessarily imply totemism or any systematized 
animal-cult. To be more precise, it should be observed that, in general, 
clans or tribes bearing such names undergo vicissitudes similar to those 
of groups bearing other names, e.g. there will be tendencies to form 
larger groupings or for the clans to be replaced by local and regional 
groups. But more significant is the fact that groups with animal-. 
names will sometimes possess stocks of names peculiar to each, so that 
it is possible to tell from the child’s animal-name to which particular 
group it belongs, even as, on higher levels, names compounded with 
Marduk, Yahweh, or Apollo would, primarily at least, be an indication 
of the original miliew of the bearer (see Frazer, Tot. Ha. ii. 344, 473; 
iii. 13, 329, 360). . 

Further, there will sometimes be an appropriate connexion between 
the animal-name of the group and the names of the constituent in- 
dividuals ; e.g. among the Elk clan of the Omahas are such personal 
names as Soft Horn, White Elk, Stumpy Tail (Tot. Hx. i. 58 sqq. ; iii. 
35, 77, 101 sq., 272). Such a practice, with which one may compare 
and contrast the theophorous names distinctive of Babylonian, 
Israelite, and other religions, is enhanced when it is a mark of piety to 
employ the animal-names, as the animal whose name the group bears 
would be angry if they fell out of use (the Wyandots, Tot. Hx. iii. 34 sq.). 
In harmony with this is the fear of uttering the name of a mythical 
animal-ancestor heedlessly or too often (the Warramunga of Australia, 
Tot. Ex. i. 145; GB. iii. 384)—the name is “ sacred,’’ neither to be for- 
gotten nor to be too freely used. Totem-animals, like animal- 
guardians, are often supposed to benefit-the men and women of their. 
group, provided they are duly invoked (Z'ot. Hx. i. 532 sq.); while, on 
the other hand, the name is so “ sacred’ that sometimes the animal 
(totem or other) must not be spoken of by its true name but by a 
descriptive epithet (Z'ot. Hx. i. 16; GB. iii. 396 sqq.), and it is a serious 
offence for the name of a totem to be publicly pronounced by a man of 
another clan (the Tinnehs of North-West America, T'ot. Hz. iii. 352 . 


1 See, in general, Jos. Jacobs, Studies in Bibl. Archeology, 64-103 (1894); G. B. 
Gray, Heb. Proper Names, 101 sqqg.; Noéldeke, ZDMG. xl. 157 sqq., and Beitrage z. 
Semit. Sprachwissenschaft, i. 73 sqq.; Zapletal, Totemismus y. d. Rel. Israels, 
20 sgq. (1901). . 


SIGNIFICANCE OF ANIMAL-NAMES 623 


Hence, the more significant the animal-name becomes, the more justly 
may it be said to function very similarly to that of anthropomorphic 
deities, though theophorous names, in their turn, constantly tend 
to lose their earlier force. And since the relation between the animals 
and the members of the group is essentially a ‘‘ personal ’’ one it is the 
more difficult to deny that such cults are religious, albeit of a very 
rudimentary type of religion. But only in proportion as the animal- 
name is an organic part of a significant system of social beliefs and 
practices can one begin to speak of true totemism. 

Animal-names usually have some significance, for it is a common 
belief that people can be in some way influenced either by a name 
given to them or by the one who gives them thename. Animal-names 
are sometimes given to indicate the nature of the infant; they are sup- 
posed to frighten away demons and enemies or persuade them that 
the bearer is not worth their unwelcome attentions. In thesame way, 
such personal names as “ three (or five) cowries”’? among the Hindus 
will convince hostile spirits that such infants are beneath contempt. 
It is true that some names may refer to bodily peculiarities (Meyer, 
Israel. 310 sq. ; Gesch. Alt. i. § 55); but more significant are those that 
denote some such attribute or quality as strength or swiftness which, 
it is hoped, the bearer will possess. It is a common belief that animals 
far surpass men in some useful ability. So, in order to protect a sickly 
child it will be given the name of a wild beast (Doughty, it 329), and the 
name is, within its limits, as effective as is a significant theophorous 
name elsewhere which is thought to secure for the bearer the aid 
of a god. 

Sometimes the names of both persons and places are those of 
animals which frequent a locality, and in this way make an impression 
upon the natives. Such cases might seem to be trifling, but often 
there are typical beliefs which connect the infant’s character or nature 
with the animal seen by the mother before its birth. In Gujarat, 
where no totem organization can be traced, an infant may be called 
by the name of the animal (cat, dog, crow, etc.) which is heard to utter 
a cry at the time when the infant is born.? But with this inchoate 
usage contrast Central Australia, where the child is supposed to owe 
its origin to the proximity of its mother to the locality where the 
spirits or souls of the totem-species and of the totem-group are col- 
lected. There is admittedly a wide range of possibilities as regards 
animal-names, but in the majority of cases the name in some way 
associates the bearer with the animal in question ; while in totemism 

1 Frazer, FOT. iii, 173 ; Clodd, Magic in Names, 102. 

2. E. Enthoven, Folklore of Bombay, 211. 

3 See Durkheim, 167 sqq., 234 (discussion of the theories of the origin of totemism). 


624 ORIGIN OF ANIMAL-NAMES 


man and the totem-animal are of the same substance, even as, when 
gods and men are akin, some substantial identity is at least implicit in 
the relationship.} 

Some writers on the “ origin”’ of totemism hold that the system 
arose merely from the more or less fortuitous and non-significant 
bestowal of animal-names and from the mystical and transcendental 
ideas of a rapport between the individual and the animal which were 
in due course generated.? With this association granted, primitive 
man is supposed to believe that the animal, plant, or inanimate object 
or natural phenomenon is ‘‘in some hidden or mysterious way” 
connected with him, and this connexion “‘ quite naturally ”’ comes to be 
thought of in terms of relationship (I. King, 150). In more detail, 
Malinowski (ed. Needham, 45 sq.) points to man’s keen interest in 
nature, the general affinity between man and the animals, the desire 
to control dangerous, useful, or edible animals, a desire which “* must 
lead to a belief in special power over the species, affinity with it, a 
common essence between man and beast or plant.’ Such a belief 
‘‘ implies’ certain restraints (e.g. the prohibition to kill and eat), 
and “‘endows man with the supernatural faculty of contributing 
ritually to the abundance of the species, . . .”” and “ this ritual leads 
to acts of a magical nature by which plenty is brought about.” 

All such explanations—if they can be so called—are of the greatest 
methodological interest both for the crucial a priori psychical elements 
which they are compelled to introduce, and for their bearing upon the 
problem of the relation between totemic (theriomorphic) and anthropo- 
morphic cults. The psychological interrelation between such cults is 
such as to forbid us to sever them too rigidly; and it is sounder to 
recognize, not that the “ higher ’’ cults have evolved from the “ lower,” 
but that they are the more evolved forms of beliefs and practices 
which appear in a more rudimentary state in totemic and totemistic 


1Cf. pp. 506, 549. Of Frazer’s theories of totemism, the third (the conceptional 
origin of totemism) is based on the Australian evidence (Zot. Ex. i. 157 sqq., 
iv. 57 sqg.). He distinguishes (a) the Australian belief that what enters a woman 
at conception is—in his words—‘“‘ the spirit of a human child which has an animal, 
a plant, a stone, or what not for its totem,” and (b) the possible beliefi—not as yet 
vouched for—that an animal, plant, or stone entered and was born as that object in 
human form, a belief which if zt occurred would be ‘“‘ a complete explanation of 
totemism ”’ (iv. 58). On the other hand, it seems evident that the totem-species 
and totem-group are so related that what takes a human form in the group can 
take the form of the totem before and after its human life, and a clear difference 
between the two does not exist. The totem does not “ become ” human any 
more than totemism ‘‘ becomes ” anthropomorphism ; the true formula (that the 
« which appears in 7 reappears in another form in m) is a much more general one. 

.? Cf, Andrew Lang, Ency. Brit.“ Totemism ” ; Folk-lore, xxiv. 159 sqq. 


MYSTIC AND ANIMAL CULTS 625 


cults—and whose still more rudimentary forms in prehistoric times 
cannot be conceived. That, as apart from problems of evolution or 
development, the problems of totemism and of theism cannot be ulti- 
mately severed is seen in the fact that beliefs in Supreme Beings have 
been found in totemic and other very simple environments (p. 529), 
and that the period of—to use W. R. 8.’s words—“‘ the re-emergence 
of a cult of the most primitive totem-type ’’—though it may be safer 
to call it totemistic or theriomorphic—is precisely the period which in 
the Deutero-Isaiah witnessed the high-water mark of Israelite theism. 

P. 358. Mystic Cutts.—The significance of Ezek. viii. 10 sg. was 
first perceived by W. R.S. in afamous article in the Journal of Philology, 
ix. (1880-81) 97 sqg.1 Ed. Meyer (Israeliten, 309 n. 3 [1906]), while 
rejecting W. R. S.’s early arguments for David’s supposed “‘ serpent ”’ 
connexions, attempts to explain Ezekiel’s evidence on the lines of the 
bas-reliefs or paintings referred to in Ezek. xxiii. 14.2. But it is clear 
that Ezekiel has in view more or less extensive cults due to the convic- 
tion that Yahweh had forsaken the land. A recent commentary 
(by Joh. Hermann, 60) recognizes a mystic cult, possibly Egyptian, 
though the mention of Tammuz could point to Babylon (viii. 14). 
It is very noteworthy, in any case, that one of the prominent officiants 
is the son of a Shaphan (badger), the name of one of the unclean animals, 
on whose Arabic equivalent the wabr, see p. 444, Kinship, 234, Lectures, 
480 n. 1.3 Itis conceivable that the shaphan, the ‘achbér (mouse), and 
the huldah (mole) were among the creatures connected with cults of 
the dead, in which case the prominence of these names in the story of 
the ‘“‘ Deuteronomic”’ reform attributed to King Josiah (2 Kings xxii.) 
is as striking as the condemnation of certain mourning customs in the 
Deuteronomic law ; ef. pp. 547, 605. 

Animal- names recur also in the Edomite-Judean genealogies. 
They are less marked in the northern tribes; and whatever be the 
best explanation of their presence and distribution, “‘ the second 
commandment, the cardinal precept of spiritual worship, is explicitly 
directed against the worship of the denizens of air, earth, and water” 
(Lectures, 470 sqq.). There is little doubt that theriomorphism, at all 
events, must have been more prevalent and deep-seated than is 
recognized by those writers who deny that there is any evidence for 


1 Reprinted in Lectures, 455 sqq. (see especially 479 sq.). On the interest—and 
storm—it excited, see Life, 332 sq., 368 sqq., 381 sq. 

2W. R. S. himself never repeated the precarious argument on David and 
Nahash, even in Kinship (1st ed. 1885) ; and attention was drawn to this fact in a 
review of Zapletal’s criticisms of W. R. S. (Der Totemismus und die Religion Israels, 
1901), see S. A. Cook, Jew. Quart. Rev., April 1902, p. 416 and n. 3. 

3 The wabr must not be killed; see Musil, Arab. Petrea, ill. 324. 


40 


626 GUILDS AND BROTHERHOODS 


totemism of the sort that is found among rudimentary peoples of 
to-day. Further, it is no less noteworthy that Egypt—with which 
Palestine was in so many respects closely connected—is notorious 
both at the period under consideration, and later, for the persistence 
of extraordinary theriomorphic cults (see pp. 226, 578 sq.). Itis also 
important to notice that, at this period of the collapse of social- 
religious systems and of the appearance of individualistic tendencies 
which naturally accompany and arise out of such conditions (cf. 
p. 592), we find not only new types of religious societies and mystical 
cults, but also guilds, unions, and other communities independent of 
the earlier social, political, and religious organizations, and possess- 
ing, in certain cases at least, more or less definite religious features of 
their own. 

Some unions are distinctly industrial or economic, and they can be 
associated with the Temple of Jerusalem and, no doubt, the Second 
Temple dating from the latter part of the sixth century. At the 
same time, there is independent evidence (a) for South Palestinian 
(semi-Edomitic) traditions of the origins of civilization and industry, 
(b) for the (late) Chronicler’s interest in the Temple-guilds, and (c) for 
the probability that a semi-Edomite wave left its mark upon Palestine 
and upon the Biblical sources in and about the same age.?, Obviously 
there are gaps between (1) the semi-Edomite and other animal-names, 
and the Temple and other guilds, and (2) the data in 2 Kings xxii., 
Isa. Ixv. sq., Ezek. viii. ; and for the present it can be regarded only as 
a coincidence that to the dog as a mystic sacrifice there corresponds 
the prominent semi-Edomite “ dog”’-clan Caleb in the constitution of 
Judah and, even at a late date, in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. 

Evidence of another sort is afforded by the communal festival 
mad in Amos vi. 7; Jer. xvi. 5. W.R.S. regarded it as some sort 


of atoning rite (p. 430 n. 4); but in the Talmud the term is used of a 
banquet or meal, and it is now well known from inscriptions.* On the 
Marseilles inscription (CJS. i. 165, 1. 16, Cooke, No. 42) there are dues 


1 Cf. the craftsmen, potters, perfumers, and workers in linen in 1 Chron. iv. 
14, 21, 23; Neh. iii. 8,31; and in CJS. i. 86 A and B (from Citium) the builders, 
velarit (0275), barbers, masons, scribes, etc.; cf. the hereditary guilds at the 
Temple of Jerusalem, who possessed the secret of preparing the incense, etc. (Yoma, 
iii. 11). See in general P. Foucart, Des Associations rel. chez les Grecs (1878) ; 
Poland, De Collegiis Artificum Dionysiacorum (Dresden, 1895), Gesch. d. griech. 
Vereinswesen (Leipzig, 1909). 

2 See S. A. Cook, CAH. vi. 185 sq. ; cf. iii. 478-80. 

3 See Clermont-Ganneau, Zee. ii. 390, iii. 22, iv. 290, 339; Qy. St. of the PEF. 
1901, pp. 239, 370; Gressmann, Zeit. f. Neutest. Wissens. xx. (1921) 228 sqq. ; 
and for the Talmudic data, see Dalman, Neue Petra, 93 sq. 


THE MARZE*H 627 


for the M1) (? the natives, a free society), the MDW the sept (cf. 
the clan sacrifice in 1 Sam. xx. 6, MMW nat), and the obx nny 
or gathering in honour of the gods. There was a marzé*h at 
Altiburnus (Cooke, No. 55; twelve members and “ their companions ’’), 
and that at Maktar had thirty-two members and performed various 
religious duties (Cooke, No. 59; Lidzb. i. 47 sqg.). In a Pireeus in- 
scription (Cooke, No. 33), where a Sidonian community (73) crown 
Shama‘ba‘al president of the corporation (13), it seems to be the 
name of an annual festival. Among the Nabatzans it was connected 
with the divine king Obedath.1 In the temple of Bel, at Palmyra, nine 
members erected an altar in Jan.—Feb. a.p. 132 to the gods Aglibol and 
Malakbel (Cooke, No. 1404; Lidzb. i. 344). Also an image was set up 
there in April a.D. 118 to a man during his presidency (AMINM N39) 
among the priests of Bel (Lidzb. ii. 281 sq.). Ina bilingual of April 203, 
the president Shalma& was both symposiarch and dpycepevs (Lidzb. ii. 
304); and the well-known Septimius Worod, viceroy of Palmyra in 
the time of Gallienus, was stratégos and symposiarch of the priests 
of the god Bel (Cooke, 288, 303). 

Another and more detailed Palmyrene inscription, of October 
A.D. 243, refers to Yarhai Agrippa, who in his presidency “ served 
the gods and presided over the divination (NDP) all the year,” 
and brought forth “ old wine to the priests throughout the year from 
his house, and brought no wine in wineskins from the wést.’”’? Among 
the officers enumerated are the scribe (N3'N3), the cook (NTI _N3 by) 
—tcorresponding to the dpyipdyepos of the temple of Jupiter at 
Damascus (Wadd. 2549)—and Yarhibola, the butler (23101).” 
Yet another reference to the term has long been found in the place- 
name Pyropapoea (2.e. MIND M3) on the mosaic map of Madeba 
(Biichler, Rev. des Ht. Juives, 1901, p. 105). According to Musil, the 
name may survive in el-Mezra’, near Kerak. It is tempting to think 
of the rites of Baal-Peor; and, in fact, Siphré, 47b, speaks of the 
orgiastic banquets (D'N7) with which the daughters of Moab 
tempted the Israelites (see Cooke, 122 n. 1). When Rabbinical 
tradition refers to the tents and booths which the women set up from 
Beth-Yeshimoth to the ‘Snow Mountain” csidn myth Were hom T 
preferable to read Mount Pisgah with Clermont-Ganneau, who adds 
that if, following Conder, Baal Peor lay beside “Ain Minyeh, the 
adjacent Tal‘at el-Benat, with its old monuments of unhewn stone, 
bears the suggestive name, “ the ascent of the maidens” (Qy. St. 1901, 
p. 372). 

1 x7>x n73Y, Dalman, op. cit. 93 sq.; Lidzb. iii, 278. On the cult, cf. Cooke, 245. 

_ 2See further H. Ingholt, Syria, vii. (1926), 128 sqq. 


628 THE SIXTH CENTURY B.C. 


If Lidzbarski’s interpretation of an ostrakon from Elephantine be 
correct, mention is made of contributions for a NMI, whence it 
would appear that in this Jewish colony the word had no disreputable 
associations (Hphem. iii. 304). Nor is there necessarily any condemna- 
tion in Jer. xvi. 5 (LXX Oiacos), whether the reference be to an 
occasion of lamentation or, as in Amos vi. 7, of revelry.1. Some light 
is thrown on orgiastic cults by Hos. iv. 17-19;? and the work of 
Baudissin, Frazer, and Gressmann combines with the discoveries of 
curious cult-objects at Beisin (Beth-Shan) to support the probability 
that there were mystica! cults in early Palestine. 

In view of this scattered evidence, the statement of W. R. S. that 
old types of cult would be likely to be prominent in the period of un- 
rest and stress in and about the sixth century B.c. gains fresh force ; 
and cults other than those of the Israelite nobles of Samaria whom 
Amos condemned, or of the colony of Elephantine, or of the Palmyrene 
priests can readily be imagined. They would naturally be more in 
harmony with the internal economic and social conditions; and the 
guilds, corporations, or brotherhoods, whether connected with the 
Temple or not, and whether or no they had their patron saints or 
other religious models, would readily tend to be religious societies 
with more or less practical aims. As a general rule, the means of 
life, the food-supply, and all vital pursuits are invariably interwoven 
with religious or quasi-religious ideas.’ Especially is this the case 
among primitive peoples and in periods of crisis. Apart from the 
usual religious or magico-religious ceremonies of a communal nature 
(see p. 586), sometimes it is the function of special secret societies to 
promote fertility.* In Central Australia totemism is “* economic” : 
Nature is, so to say, subdivided among a number of clans, each of 
which is responsible for a special department; the whole society is 
bound together by the economic interdependence of all the parts.’ 
Although this is unique, the general principles are world-wide; and 
with the break-up of the old religious systems in South-West Asia, 
and in the difficult economic conditions which can be traced, we are 
entitled to expect that the national and more orthodox beliefs and 

1 The latter interpretation is adopted by Duhm and Cornill ; for the former, see 
Peake. The ambiguity has analogies (see p. 432). 

2 Emended text ; see Gressmann, ZVTW., xx. 229 sq. 

3 The passage in Amos would seem to point to a musical guild, with David as 
the founder or patron of musical instruments ; cf. the South Palestinian tradition 
of Jubal, etc. (see Meyer, Israel. 218 sg. ; Cook, CAH. vi. 185 sq.). 

4Cf.S. Angus, Mystery Religions and Christianity, 196 sq. 

§ See I. King, Devel. of Rel., Index, s.v. “‘ Food problem.” 

6 e.g. among the Omahas, Hutton Webster, 182 sq. ; cf. 188. 

7 Cf, Malinowski in the Westermarck-Festschrift, 97, 100, 105, 107 sq. 


EMERGENCE OF TOTEMISM 629 


practices relating to the care of the great gods for their people and 
land would give way to others in no degree less practical, but far 
more unsystematized and rudimentary. 

Finally, the transitional period after the breakdown of the early 
religious systems is of universal importance for the history of religion 
in general, and in particular for the development in the Deutero- 
Isaiah of ideas of God and Man which mark an epoch in the evolution 
of religion. Here, and in the strange Egyptian animal-cults, in the 
scattered Biblical data for mystic cults, etc., in the exhibitions of 
spiritual arrogance—of which the tradition of Nebuchadrezzar is only 
one—there are the most extraordinary extremes. Behind Isa. liii. lies 
a new era in religion, at a period which found its outlet in the most 
diverse manifestations, of which the testimony of Ezek. viii. 12, 
Isa. Ixv. 3 sqq., etc., is beyond all doubt. The evidence for therio- 
morphic, if not tc i*mistic modes of thought, taken as a whole, though 
varying in value, confronts the sublime conception of the Servant of the 
Lord; it is as though the deep-reaching disintegration of life and 
thought opened the way for unique developments in most contrary 
directions, and that roads led varyingly towards the “ lowest” and the 
highest ’’ conceptions of spiritual nature. Cf. p. 554. 

In both Egypt and South-West Asia the conditions of life and 
thought had passed far beyond those absolutely rudimentary con- 
ditions that characterize totemic societies such as we know them. 
W. B.S. has already pointed out that new cults can arise “ at a later 
stage of human progress than that of which totemism is characteristic ”’ 
(p. 138). It is now necessary to add that totemism can be seen in 
the making among the Bantu, and that among the no-thern tribes of 
Nigeria, Mohammedan families will venerate sacred animals as the 
embodiments of ancestral spirits.? But even in Central Australia 
totemism has had a history behind it (7'ot. Ex. i. 238, 251). Hence, 
totemic and related phenomena represent tendencies which are not 
necessarily absolutely primitive, and which will vary in their issue 
according to the environment in which they emerge; and no one 
specific totem-system (such as that in Australia) is necessarily to be 
regarded as the criterion, even as Melanesian Mana is not the touch- 
stone for the many various interrelated forms of ‘‘ Mana”’ (see p. 550 sq.). 
Precisely what shall be the criteria of totemism, and how the varieties 
of totemic, totemistic, and theriomorphic cults shall be classified, are 
problems of methodology; but W. R. S.’s treatment of the Semitic 


1 Cf. G. F. Moore, History of Religions, i. viii sg. ; Cook, CAH. iii. 489, 499. See 
also pp. 592 sqq. 

2 See respectively J. T. Brown, Among the Bantu Nomads (cf. Times Lit. Suppl. 
18th March 1926), and C. K. Meek, i. 174 sq. 


630 HUMAN SACRIFICE 


data has, in any event, led to repeated discussion of the problems along 
most varied and fruitful lines. 

P. 361 sqqg. Human Sacriricze.1—Its prevalence among agri- 
cultural communities as against hunters and pastorals may be due to 
the association of ideas concerning bloodshed and fertility of soil. 
Infanticide is more common among hunters (due in large measure 
to their mode of life), but cannibalism declines as one passes on to 
settled peoples.2, Among the reasons for human sacrifice are (1) the 
use of dead bodies for magical purposes (Mader, 55, 65). (2) Various 
psychological reasons—the desire to get into touch with the super- 
sensuous, the feeling that the passage from life to death unites the seen 
and the unseen realm, and the like. (3) More precisely the object is 
to arouse the gods, to extort their aid (Westermarck, Morocco, i. 
528 sq.); or it is to send a message by the victim to the supernatural 
realm. (4) It is to secure the presence of a human spirit, a man’s 
mana or his sacred influence. (5) While a death is often regarded as 
something vicarious—on the conviction that another’s death has saved 
one’s own, the next step is deliberately to slay in order that another 
may live, and typically to strengthen or prolong the life of a “ sacred ” 
man, a chief, etc. (GB. iv. 160 sq., vis 221 sqqg.). Here should prob- 
ably be included the sacrifices to Moloch or Melek, the king-god.? 
That human sacrifice in some way invigorated the supernatural powers 
—who in their turn sustained human and other life—is a most funda- 
mental idea, in that it is associated, on the one hand, with the belief 
that gods needed food, etc.—and primarily in order that they might — 
perform their functions—and, on the other hand, with the more 
spiritual convictions of what it is that God really does require from 
men.‘ 

The evidence for human sacrifice proves to be exceedingly im- 
pressive, pointing to an early prevalence and, at times, a systematiza- 
tion of ideas uniting men and the supernatural realm. Indeed, Frazer 


1 Wellhausen, 43, 115 sqg.; Lagrange, 101 sgg.; Mannhardt’s essay (see p. 366 
n. 5) is in his Mytholog. Forschungen; H. L. Strack, Human Blood and Jewish 
Ritual (1909); Mader, Die Menschenopfer d. alten Hebréer u. d. benachbarten 
Volker (Freiburg i, B., 1909); Westermarck, Moral Ideas, i. ch. xix.; Schwenn, 
Die Menschenopfer bei d. Griechen w. Rémern (Giessen, 1915). 

2 Hobhouse, Wheeler, and Ginsberg, 242, ; 

3 See Moore, #.B1. 3187 sqq.; Lagrange, 99 sqq., 108 sg.; Kennett and Frazer, 
GB. vi. 219 and note. 

4 Forfoundation sacrifices, see p. 633. The Egyptian kings sacrificed captives 
that their name might live; on the Arab. naci'a, see p. 363 n. 1, and below, p. 641. 
On traces of the sacrifice of infants in South Arabian inscriptions, see OLZ. 1906, 
cols. 58-70; Zett. f. Ass. xxix. 184 sgg. The supposed Phoenician references (CIS. 
i, 166, 194) are much too uncertain (cf. Mader, 78). 


ANIMAL AND HUMAN VICTIMS 631 


(GB. vii. 409) conjectures that there was a homogeneity of magico- 
religious ideas over a great part of South Europe and West Asia. 
Human sacrifice stamps relatively advanced and especially decadent 
peoples, among whom the difference between human and animal life is 
clearly understood ; whereas, among rudimentary peoples the difference 
is only slightly grasped, and an animal victim might well be deemed a 
better victim than a man (cf. pp. 361, 623 sq.). As W.R.S. points out, 
the assumption that the animal victim is a surrogate for the human 
does not sufficiently explain the facts. Ifthe change be due to a soften- 
ing of manners, the re-emergence of the human victim enhanced 
religion; thus A. B. Davidson, speaking of the Servant of Yahweh in 
Isa. liii., well observes that ‘‘ the prophet has taken the great step of 
lifting up the sacrificial idea out of the region of animal life into that 
of human life.” 1_ Human sacrifice (which became an obsession among 
certain peoples) and animal sacrifice alike admit of higher and lower 
interpretations ; and any conviction that man was “ higher” than 
the animals betokens a growth of human personality which involves 
the question of the relation between anthropomorphism and therio- 
morphism. See p. 670. 

P. 366 n. 3.—Cf. Mader, 30. Prof. Peet points out (in a private 
communication) that the determinative throughout earlier times is 
simply a knife, with or without the addition of the sign of violent 
action, and that the determinative of the bound man with a knife at 
his throat is very late and degenerate. Whether so crude and, as it 
would seem, so primitive a meaning is to be expected in later times 
may seem doubtful, unless account is taken of the persistence of human 
sacrifice among the Pheenicians, and of other barbaric customs else- 
where in the old civilized world. 

P. 366 n. 5.—On the possible Phoenician (Semitic) origin of Zeus 
Lyceus, see E. E. Sikes, Classical Review, ix. 68 sq. ; on the wolf-god, 
see Kinship, 200, Frazer on Paus. viii. 2, 6 (and vol. iv. 189 sq.); Farnell, 
Cults, i. 41; A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 63 n. 6. 

P. 367. CANNIBALISM.—There is little evidence for cannibalistic 
ideas and usages in Palestine (e.g. ‘‘ I slew him with my teeth,” Qy. Sé. 
1879, p. 85), Moroceo (a symbolical practice by the blood-avenger, 
Westermarck, Morocco, i. 515), and Arabia (Kinship, 296); cf. also 
Lagrange, 259 and nn. 6 and 7). But cannibalism was primarily a 
mystical or sacred rite, and Malinowski (ed. Needham, 48) observes that 
among the Melanesians of New Guinea the custom of partaking of the 
flesh of the dead was a pious one, ‘‘ done with extreme repugnance and 
dread,’ and at the same time felt to be “‘ a supreme act of rever- 
ence, love, and devotion.’ Cf., in general, Westermarck, Origin and 

10.7. Prophecy, 430 (Edinburgh, 1903), 


632 CEREMONIAL BURNING 


Development of the Moral Ideas, ii. ch. xlvi. Probably the most ancient, 
and certainly not the least interesting reference to it is found in the 
old ‘“‘ Pyramid Texts”’ (c. 2800 B.c.). These tell how the Pharaoh 
hunts, lassoes, and slaughters the gods in the celestial regions, makes 
an evening meal off them, and feeds on their internal organs in order 
to possess himself of their intelligence, skill, strength, etc. (see Breasted, 
Rel. and Thought in Anc. Egypt, 127 sqq.). 

P. 372 sqq. BURNING THE VictTIM.1—For the ceremonial burnings 
at Hierapolis, see Clemen, Baudissin-Festschrift, 104 sq., and cf. the 
destruction of garments, etc., at the festival of Simeon ben Yochai at 
Meiron (Qy. St. 1878, p. 24; GB. v. 178 sq.). On the Molech cult, see 
the references above, p. 630 n. 3; and on the flaming bull-shrines, 
A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 722, 784 sq. Fire has its “ spirit’ inhabitants 
(J POS. v. 165); like water, it is a purifying agent in Babylonia (KAT. 
417 sq.; Jastrow, Rel. Bel. 315 sq.), and a symbol of purity in Zoroas- 
trianism. Passing through fire can thus be interpreted as a cleansing 
rite (Eitrem, 133 sqq., 169 sq., 174). Similarly, in New South Wales, 
Dhuramoolan is supposed to kill the youths, cut them up, burn them, 
and remould them into new beings (R. H. Matthews, JRAIJ. xxv. 297 
sq., Xxvi. 336). Westermarck (Morocco, ii. 199 sqq.) explains Mid- 
summer fire-ceremonies as purificatory and intended to remove harm- 
ful influences (see also Frazer, GB. x. pp. vii, 330 sqg.). But a magical 
efficacy is also attached to the burning of animals (e.g. of a cock to 
make the year “ white’ or lucky, West., 203), and ideas of regeneration 
and re-creation seem to be fundamental. For the burning of Dido, 
Heracles of Tyre, Hamilcar, and others, see GB. ch. v.—vii.; and as 
regards the so-called “‘ pyre’’ of Sandan of Tarsus, see the criticisms 
of A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 601. What was said of Sardanapalus seems to 
rest upon a confusion of Sin-shar-ishkun and the well-known fate of 
Shamash-shum-ukin; unfortunately the British Museum text is 
illegible at the place where the fate of the former would be described 
(Gadd, Fall of Nineveh, 18 sq. ; Sidney Smith, CAH. iii. 129 sq.). 

P. 376. FouNDATION Sacririces.—On inaugural sacrifices, see 
p. 159 n.1. At the present day, dastur (“‘ permission”’) is asked on 
approaching the abode of any supernatural being ; and on commencing 
any undertaking it is usual to call on the name of Allah, the Virgin, and 
the Prophet (Canaan, JPOS. v. 166 sq.). The first or beginning of 
anything is crucial (cf. Crawley, Mystic Rose, 136, 191, 285), and 
ceremonies intended to carry one over an initial critical period are as 
common as they are psychologically intelligible (cf. Marett, Threshold, 

1QOn burnt sacrifices in general, see G. F. Moore, £.Bi. art. “Sacrifice,” 


§§ 12 sq., 26; Lagrange, 261; and on cremation, see Sartori, Zeit. d. Vereins f 
Volkskunde, xvii. 361 sqq. 


FOUNDATION SACRIFICES 633 


171 sgq.). On foundation sacrifices in particular, see especially 
Sartori, Zeit. f. Hthnol. xxx.1-54.1_ For Malalas’s story of Antioch; see 
A. B. Cook, Zeus, ii. 1188. In the Arabic version of the Travels of John 
the Son of Zebedee (ed. Mrs. A. S. Lewis, 43) it is related that there 
was a Satanic power in the bath-house of the temple at Antioch; when 
the foundations were laid, a living girl was buried in the ground and the 
foundation-stone laid over her, and thrice a year (at dates known to the 
keeper) this Satanic being would strangle a victim. The belief still 
survives that certain buildings, especially baths and houses erected near 
a spring. will not prosper unless the foundation has been erected upon 
blood ; and in the case of a Turkish bath a negro or Sudanese is the 
victim, whence such sayings as “ The bath does not work except on a 
negro.’ * Of special interest is the evidence of Landtmann (Acta 
Academic Abensis, 1920, i. 5) on “‘ Papuan Magic in the Building of 
Houses ”’—the lives of two old people, selected for the purpose, are 
forfeited when the building of the “‘ men’s house” is completed ; the 
actual cause of death is not clear, ‘“‘ there seems to be an under- 
standing that the endowment of the house, with its various magical 
properties, has consumed their vitality ’’ (12 sg., 28). 

** All sanctuaries are consecrated by a theophany ”’ (p. 436); and 
in the closely related stories of the altars inaugurated by Gideon and 
by Manoah, the mysterious messenger who disappears (in xiii. 20 he 
ascends in the flame; cf. Judg. xx. 40, of a burning city) may be the 
echo of a tradition of the burning of a sacred human victim (see S. A. 
Cook, J7'S. 1927, No. 112). The human sacrifice at Duma (p. 370) to 
consecrate the altar finds a parallel in the similar sacrifice at the con- 
struction of altars of the Indian fire-god Agni (Loisy, 367), and in the 
Jewish and Christian belief that the souls of the righteous and of mar- 
tyred saints are under the heavenly altar—martyrs being true sacrificial 
victims (see R.H.Charles on Rev. vi. 9). Evidence for ancient foundation 
sacrifices, illustrative of the story of Hiel’s sacrifice (1 Kings xvi. 34), 
has been furnished by excavation in Palestine ; besides remains of actual 
sacrifices are figurines of men cut from lamine of bronze and silver 
(Macalister, Gezer, ii. 426 sqq.). It may be remarked that the Baby- 
lonian ritual for the dedication of a house names the brick-god (¢l 
libitti), who, prominent during the work of building, is now expelled 
(Zimmern, Zeit. f. Ass. xxiii. 369). Foundation deposits, however, 
are found, nails terminating in a female bust, copper male figures 


1 See also Trumbull, Threshold Covenant, 45 sqg.; Jaussen, 339, 343; Frazer, 
GB. iii. 89 sqq.; HOT. i. 421 sqg.; and for the degeneration of the practice and the 
survivals, A. C. Haddon, Study of Man, 347-361. 

2 Canaan, J POS. vi. 63; see also Hanauer, Qy. St. Jan. 1908, p. 77 sq. (if a man’s 
shadow fall upon a foundation-stone that is being laid he will die within the year). 


634 VITAL PARTS OF THE BODY 


bearing the builder’s basket, clay figures of the god Papsukal.1 On 
the other hand, in Egypt the foundation deposits are under the corners 
of a building or the wall itself, and consist of objects intended to serve 
the deceased in his future life. 

P. 381. Vira Parts or THE Bopy.—Among the Semites, as among 
other early peoples, the psychical (mental, ethical) and physica] are 
one, “* psychical and ethical functions are considered to be just as 
appropriate to the bodily organs as the physiological.” 2 For the 
Bab. liver (kabittw) and reins (kalitu, kaldte) as seats of the emotions, 
see Dhorme, Rev. Bibl. xxxi. 506, 508 sq., xxxii. 194. On the liver in 
Syriac and Arabic literature, see Merx, Florilegium Vogtié, 427 sqq. 
(citing, inter alia, Ibn Ezra, “‘ the soul is in the liver”’). The liver is 
of special interest for its use in divination (hepatoscopy), the pseudo- 
science which spread to the Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans, and 
turned on the belief that by appropriate means the liver of a sacrificial 
victim could be made to reflect the very soul or intention of the god.® 

Any part of the body that was regarded as vital, indeed anything 
that seemed to be intimately connected with a man (e.g. his name or 
shadow), could be treated as an integral part of him, part of his per- 
sonality in fact. In this way any part of a whole (a) could be used by 
an enemy, who would work magic by means of it‘; or (b) it could be 
used as a charm or talisman, like a saint’s relic,® and (c) it could be placed 
in security in order to preserve the owner’s life.® 

The “ part” sufficiently represents the ‘‘ whole.” The under- 


1 See, further, L. W. King, Records of the Reign of Tukulti-Ninib, i. 15 sqq. 

2H. Wheeler Robinson, in Peake’s People and Book, 353 sqq.; for O.T. dake, see 
362 sqq. 

3 For a concise account of Jastrow’s researches in this field, see his' Religious 
Beliefs in Babylonia and Assyria, 150 sqqg.; cf. also Halliday, Gr. Div. 187 sqq., 198. 
On the erroneously styled ‘‘ caul” (the “ finger” or “ lobe ” of the liver), see 
Moore in the Néldeke-Festschrift, 161 sqq.; it was probably as a protest against 
divination that this significant part (the Roman caput jecoris) was commanded to 
be burnt (Ley. ili. 4; see Jastrow, 172 n. 2). 

4 For magical practices with parts of the body, see GB. i. 182-200. The belief 
in the danger of throwing away one’s nail parings is old (see Seligsohn, Jewish 
Ency. “‘ Nails ” ; Daiches, Oil Magic, 32 n.). 

5 Cf. p.382n.1. For the head as a trophy, see G. Jacob, Das Leben d. vorislam. 
Bedwinen, 128 and n.2; and as a relic, M. van Berchem, Sachau-Festschrift, 303 sq. ; 
Reinach, Rev. del Hist. Rel, \xiii. 25 ; Cultes, iv. 252 sq. 

6 The after-birth (GB. xi. 162) was viewed in Egypt as the physical or spiritual 
double of the child, and is still preserved among Arab tribes of the Sudan. At 
Kordofan a shrine is said to contain the placenta of a holy man; see C. G. Seligman 
and Miss Margaret Murray, Man (1911), No. 97 (the Egyptian Sed festival and 
African parallels) ; Seligman, JRA. xliii. 658; and the ea Presentation 
Volume, 451}3q. 


“VITAL” PARTS OF THE ‘‘ WHOLE ”’ 635 


lying principle recurs in ideas of group responsibility or corporate 
personality where the individual is part of a larger unit, which he can 
represent as a victim, scapegoat, mediator, etc. It is expressed (a) 
psychologically, in the ideas of preserving or of blotting out a name, 
and (6) physically, in rites for the preservation of blood, etc. Material 
vehicles are commonly required, as when a monument is set up to 
perpetuate the name, or the Ark and Temple of the Israelites testify 
to the presence and protection of Yahweh. The life of the people is 
wrapped up, as it were, in David the King (2 Sam. xxi. 17), but when 
David’s life is bound up in the bundle of life with Yahweh (1 Sam. xxv. 
29; Frazer, FOT. ii. 503 sqq.), the question arises whether there were 
appropriate symbols (e.g. Jike the Australian churinga or other material 
receptacles of life or soul). Similarly, when souls could be hunted 
or snared (Ezek. xiii. 17-21; FOT’. ii. 510 sqq.), it is to be noted that 
among other peoples the belief that the soul has some concrete or 
material embodiment is a commonplace. In the various beliefs to the 
effect that (a) the individual has a life, soul, or vital principle which 
can be localized (in the blood, fat, etc.), and (6) that the larger group- 
unit can be represented adequately by a particular individual, are illus- 
trated the ways in which early peoples endeavoured to express certain 
intuitive convictions of the “‘ whole’? of which the individual was 
a vital “‘ part,” and the relation between parts and wholes, whether 
of groups or of individuals. Frequently, the death or annihilation of 
a ““ part” does not affect the “‘ whole.” The man has an “ external 
soul”’ or it is preserved elsewhere, and he is therefore safe (GB. xi. 
ch. x. sg.). An animal dies, but the species lives; or it is killed, but 
certain appropriate beliefs and rites secure the continuity of the animal. 
The individual is bound up with that which is more permanent than 
himself—the group (through whom runs one common life), or the 
“living god,” whose attribute guarantees the continuity of the group. 
The fundamental convictions of some unity and continuity transcend 
the particular ways in which we find them expressed ; and the fact that 
even in totemism they occur in remarkably systematized forms is far 
more important than the secondary question whether those are the 
“ origin’ of the more advanced forms. 

P. 395 sq. PRopERTy.—Primitive ideas of property turn upon (1) 
the relations between the group and its god, (2) the group’s land and 
livelihood, and (3) the relations between the group and the individual. 
Even among rudimentary peoples there is a certain amount of in- 
dividuality and—where men have their own fetishes or their own 
personal totems—of individual religion, and consequently personal 
property is by no means rare (cf. p. 590). Thus, the Australian native 
will give away his weapons, tools, or even his churinga—the sacred 


636 PROPERTY : INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP 


object with which his soul or spirit is connected—though it is dis- 
posed of only according to certain rules (Wheeler, The Tribe, 36 sq.). 
Men can even possess dances; there are proprietary rights in other 
than material objects, although when they are claimed or renounced, a 
certain reality and substance is given to the procedure by means of 
symbols; cf. the story of Ruth (iii. 9, iv. 7), and see Kinship, 105. 
Naturally, individuality and individual property are less and ideas of 
communal or group property are greater among early, unspecialized,. 
or relatively simple societies ; and when the religion encourages com- 
munity of goods, this has sometimes meant, e.g. in Fiji, “‘ the privilege 
of pilfering each other’s goods with impunity.” 1 

What is intimately connected with an individual is so much a part 
of him that it can serve as a potent relic or can be used to his hurt by 
the ‘ magician.” This might be his hair or his clothing, and some- 
times the personal property of a man is so indistinguishable from him 
that it is destroyed at his death, not necessarily in the conviction that 
in this way it could accompany him to his new existence—prevalent 
though this belief has been—but rather from “ the primitive extension 
of the man’s personality to all the objects commonly associated with 
him in his lifetime.” ? 

Among simple peoples, and hunters in particular, there is little 
divided ownership of land, and rights are shared by the tribe as a whole. 
But among so rude a folk as the Veddahs individuals will hold land, 
though they may not alienate it save with the permission of the group. 
Such a rule is common, and in Babylonia when Manishtusu bought an 
estate for his son, the leading men of each hamlet were the sellers (Johns, 
Bab. and Ass. Laws, 192). ‘“* Private ownership tends to increase in 
the higher agricultural stages, but partly in association with the 
communal principle, partly qualified by dependence on the chief, 
or, in some instances, by something of the nature of ‘feudal 
tenure.’ 3 

The underlying ideas of property are of a semi-mystical nature in 
that the land belongs to the whole group and its sacred beings ; or, as 
in Israel, both land and people belong to the god (cf. pp. 95 sqq., 536 sq.). 
In Australian totemism the totem-group who own land are virtually 
the reincarnations of their ancestors, and it is a typical conviction that 
the place where men are born is their own, and that they have a right 
to hunt over it.* Further, although ideas of property seem to lead 


1J. F. M‘Lennan, Studies in Ancient History, 2nd series, 217; to a similar 
effect, see R. A. S. Macalister, Hist. of Civilisation in Palestine, 127 sqq. 

2 E.S. Hartland, Primitive Law, 88 sqq. 

3 Hobhouse, Wheeler, and Ginsberg, 246, 253. 

4 Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, 322, 325. Cf. p. 536 n. 2 above. 


PROPERTY RIGHTS 637 


back to an absolute community, analogous to a primary promiscuity 
(cf. Kinship, 150 sq.), this is theory rather than practice, for there are 
representatives (chiefs, priests, etc.), and they have superior rights and 
privileges on account of their important functions or duties, which 
are primarily on behalf of the group. For example, they will receive 
a larger share of booty, etc. (see above, p. 495 sq.). Indeed, individuals 
may be said to have property-rights only as effective members of the 
group, and according to an old Arab rule, ‘‘ none can be heirs who do 
not take part in battle, drive booty, and protect property” (Kinship, 
66). However simple and intelligible in itself such a principle might 
be, it is a natural step from the rule that booty belonged only to the 
actual warriors (1b. 67) to the typical problem whether other members 
of the group were entitled to share in the distribution (1 Sam. xxx. 
24 sq., compared with Num. xxxi. 27 sqq.). And here arose the prob- 
lem of the limits of groups. In general, the members of a group are 
bound together by initiation and other unifying ceremonies, by a 
common belief both in the validity of taboos, curses, and other super- 
natural sanctions, and in the function of the gods.!_ Property rights 
belonged to the full member of the group; the man outside the group 
is as such rightless ; see further, p. 661. 

Writers who suppose that primitive communities would escape the 
temptations to greed and avarice that beset modern societies, tend to 
forget that wives, children, and slaves were, in a sense, property. In 
fact, these certainly evoked early ideas of production and possession, 
even as the problems of the food-supply inevitably stimulated primitive 
speculation on growth and ownership. Even marital rights are pro- 
perty rights (Kinship, 105; cf. 132); but the rights of men over 
women are not absolute (cf. Westermarck, Moral Ideas, i. 631 sqq., 
637 sqq.). (Women are commonly regarded as chattels ; but they have 
limited rights of property, even as slaves may have a right to their 
own earnings. Neither women nor slaves could dispose of their 
person ; and although their liberty is typically restricted as regards 
specific functions and duties, the menfolk, too, as full members of 
a group, are in their turn subject to the restrictions borne by the group. 
Hence the group-system is, as such, founded upon mutual restrictions 
which are for its welfare; though in practice there is the invariable 
question whether such and such restrictions upon the disposal of oneself 
or one’s possessions—in the widest sense—are for the advantage of 
particular individuals or of the group as a whole. 

The feeling that production gives right of possession finds its most 

1 There are well-known gods of justice or righteousness (cf. p. 659 below); and 


in Senegambia two gods preside over Justice and Property respectively (Frazer, 
FOT, iii, 317). See, in general, Frazer, Psyche’s Task, 


638 PRODUCTION AND OWNERSHIP 


characteristic expression in the question whether children, being gotten 
by the mother, belong to her kin-group, or, being begotten by the father, 
should be reckoned to his (cf. CAH. i.? 207 sq.). The difference, which 
is of the first importance in sociological development, not only in- 
volves primitive conceptions of production and ownership, but is 
also bound up with ideas of the supernatural factor in the processes of 
growth. As a general rule, much that could be reckoned among a 
man’s possessions was seen to be due not solely to his own efforts ; and 
ideas of production and possession typically involved the supernatural 
powers as causes of fertility and prosperity, or even as owners and 
occupiers of the world at large. Thus, waste land had its occupants, 
it must not be opened up heedlessly ; and when the Hebrew ydrash 
significantly covers both possession and dispossession, it agrees with 
the general feeling that things not already possessed by men are not 
without some possessor who has rights over them, or that they are 
‘* sacred’? before they are taken by “ sacred’ individuals or are put 
to “‘ profane’ use after suitable precautions (above, p. 159 n.).+ 

The very practice of firstfruits, firstlings, and votive offerings, and 
the ceremonies believed to be indispensable for the maintenance and 
sustenance of the group, commonly reflect the primitive prototype of 
the later and more explicit conviction that, whatever be due to human 
activity, the increase is given by God. In the anxiety of primitive 
peoples concerning the fertility of man and of nature it is possible to 
perceive the underlying question—Do the gods (spirits, etc.) own, 
control, or exploit what they bestow upon men, much in the same way 
as men? Or, as proprietors, agencies, producers, etc., are their 
activities in some way quite different from man’s? In other words, 
men’s ideas of their own powers, and their ideas of what lies within 
the power of gods, spirits, and the like, interact; and in the ideas of 
property, possession, rights, and so forth, the human and the super- 
natural or divine spheres interpenetrate. Moreover, sometimes the 
gods are obviously thought to possess complete rights over the processes 
upon which men rely ; but at other times they appear to be so immedi- 
ately one with them as to be “‘immanent”’ in them. In either case 
men expect by appropriate appeal to gain the help of their gods. 
But, as apart from this, groups or special individuals are constantly 
performing ceremonies as though these processes were either com- 
pletely under their control or immanent in themselves. That is to say, 
the data of religion represent gods and men alike as controlling from 

1 Hence, too, when the group-system has come to repudiate the widow and 
orphan it will be enunciated (as in O.T. religion) that these are under the care of the 


god of the group, thus extending the idea of the limits of the group and the group- 
god in question. 


PROPERTY AND THE GODS 639 


outside the processes upon which production, property, and wealth 
may be said to depend, or as being in intimate and immediate con- 
nexion with them, immanent in them. 

W. R. 8.’s fundamental theory is that holy things belong to the 
holy group and its god; and when they are appropriated, it is by the 
representatives of the group and for the purposes of the group in its 
relation to the god (p. 147). This group, bound up with its past and 
its future, and with the god, is not the visible group limited in space 
and time ; and in agreement with this is his argument elsewhere to the 
effect that all property belongs to the group, and that individuals have 
only the usufruct (Kinship, 67). The latter view is instructive if only 
because such a law as that of the bird’s nest in Deut. xxii. 6 sq. is no 
doubt meant to be a typical case of the “ right of user.” Complete 
possession cannot be claimed, especially by a people who, with its 
land, belongs to its god ; and even the ceremonial treatment of the blood 
of animals slain for food reflects the conviction that part of the victim 
must be restored to the giver of all things (p. 584 sq.). 

W. RB. S.’s strong remarks upon the evil effect of ideas of property 
in the development of religion are in keeping with his entire argument. 
A wrong notion of property obscures the elementary facts of the re- 
lation between the member of a group, his group, and the god. It is 
true that he seems to some writers to underrate the undeniable psycho- 
logical value of benevolence and generosity (2 Cor. ix. 7); but he is 
concerned with the danger of false notions of the value of mere acts 
of transference, as though divine favour could be bought by payments 
(p. 396). The prophets condemn the assumption that heavy payments 
and costly gifts would purchase those practical manifestations of 
Yahweh’s favour and assistance upon which the people’s very existence 
depended (cf. G. B. Gray, Sacrifice, 43 sq., 53 sq.). To cite Gray, “* The 
prophets held forth the truth that God’s favour is found by man’s 
becoming like Himself, just and merciful ... the tenour of their 
teaching was, not gifts but fellowship’? (44). In other words, their 
ideal is the imitatio Dei, and this is no other than the spiritual counter- 
part of the primitive ideas that man’s life, property, and welfare are 
secured by the ceremonial rites of communion or of identification with 
supernatural beings or with ‘“‘ natural” processes, which rites, however 
‘“‘ magical’ they tend to become, have in their primary stages those 
valuable characteristics which merit the term ‘ magico-religious.”’ 
Primitive religion—religion in its primary stages—is predominantly 
practical (cf. also Matt. vi. 25-33), and although W. R. 8. appears to be 
dealing with abstract and theoretical questions, they are the ideas 
which are implicit, however imperfectly, in religious cults from 
totemism upwards. 


640 CEREMONIES IN WAR 


P. 402. War.1—Among primitive peoples the objects of war are 
mainly blood-revenge and vengeance, rather than booty or territorial 
gains. At a more advanced stage, where religious, political, and other 
considerations are interwoven, wars avenge affronts upon the god’s 
representative, people, or land; they carry the god’s name where it 
was previously unknown, and among the old Oriental peoples wars, as 
distinct from mere forays, will owe their driving force to religious 
enthusiasm (or fanaticism), and the imperialism is a religious one. 
Speaking generally, at the opening ceremonies of war means are taken 
to consult oracles and enlist the gods (1 Sam. xxiii. 2, 4, 11; con- 
trast xxviii. 6,15; cf. Wellhausen, 132, 136 sg.). The familiar mimetic 
rites of primitive peoples serve partly to concentrate attention upon 
the coming fight, and no doubt partly also as a rehearsal. The 
dramatic language of Ezekiel (ch. iv.), symbolizing the certainty of the 
divine judgment, would find a distinctly ‘‘ magical”’ counterpart in 
the means commonly adopted to ensure, if not rather to compel, the 
help of the gods; cf. the story of Nectanebus (in Budge, Alexander 
the Great, ii. 4 sq.). The mimetic ceremonies and the taboos of the 
women, when the men are away fighting, have primarily a psychological 
value; they are ‘‘ the spontaneous outflow of action along the line 
of that which absorbed their attention” (I. King, Devel. of Rel. 179 sq.). 
But while the knowledge of the women’s interest could naturally 
stimulate the absent menfolk, the activities tend to become regarded 
as indispensable and automatically helpful, and thus gain a “* magical ”’ 
efficacy. Similarly, the chastity both of the women at home and of 
the warriors away, and the various taboos and vows, are primarily of 
psychological value, being “‘ religious,’ or rather “ magico-religious,”’ 
before they become mechanical methods of hastening victory. That 
some taboos were likely to defeat their object is evident from what is 
said of Saul’s vow (1 Sam. xiv. 24 sqq.) and of the Jews’ refusal to fight on 
their Sabbath day (1 Macc. ii. 32 sqq.). Frazer cites cases of abstinence 
from food, self-mutilation, and even the cutting off of fingers among 
the Nootka Indians in order to ensure success (GB. iii. 160 sqq.). 
Primarily, all such heroic measures are intended to gain if not to 
force the assistance of the gods, and however “ superstitious’ or 
‘“ frivolous’”’ they may seem, it is necessary to recognize that they 
are psychologically explicable in their origin, and are very important 
testimonies to the similarity of the religious consciousness everywhere, 
and to the spontaneous conviction of the efficacy of restrictions, 
restraints, mortifying practices, and self-inflicted pain. 

1 See Schwally, Semit. Kriegsaltertiimer ; Holsti, “‘ Some Superstitious Customs 


in Primitive Warfare,” Westermarck-Festschrift, 137 sqg.; Sir G. A. Smith, 
Deuteronomy, 243 sqq.; S. A. Cook, Rel. of Ancient Palestine, s.v. 


FIGHTING FOR THE GODS 641 


The order of encampment in Num. ii.—each tribe with its standard 
—finds a parallel in the Bedouin encampment “‘ by kindreds”’ (Doughty, 
i. 414), and among North American Indians on the march, when 
“the members of each totem-clan camp together and the clans are 
arranged in a fixed order in camp” (Frazer, Tot. Hx. i. 75). When 
some Australian tribes go to war, the totem animal is carried, stuffed, 
asastandard.t Not only do the gods frequently accompany the army 
(p. 37 above), but men fight on behalf of their gods or what their gods 
stand for; and they will be appropriately decorated with symbols or 
emblems of their totem or their god. They thus do more than merely 
imitate their gods: they are filled with a literal ‘“‘ enthusiasm.” To 
warlike peoples correspond gods of war, and Egyptian references to 
the fierceness of Pharaoh, like ‘‘ Baal in his wrath,” etc., throw light 
upon the character of the Palestinian god (Hadad, see p. 532 sq.)—with 
which one may compare the attributes of Yahweh as a war-god—and 
point to the considerable body of relevant beliefs and practices con- 
cerning war and the gods which once prevailed (cf. CAH. ii. 349; iii. 
431). The hérem is only theoretically absolute (Doughty, i. 335; Sir 
G. A. Smith on Deut. ii. 34). The slaughter of prisoners, especially 
chiefs, was a common practice in Egypt. In Assyria, of evil fame for 
its atrocities, Ashurnasirpal 0. burns boys and girls (Annals, i. 109; 
ii. 19, 109 sg.); Ashurbanipal slays prisoners for the dead (Kezlin- 
schrift. Bibliothek, ii. 193, col. iv. 70), and kills the king,of Elam on a 
board like asheep (KB. ii. 257). On the naci‘a, see pp. 363 n., 491 sq., 
and ef. the survival in Doughty, i. 452; and for the suggestion of the 
** eminent scholar,’ see Wellhausen, 121 n. 2,127 n.4. The splitting 
or rending (p. 491) recalls the use of shdsa‘ of the tearing open of 
the bird in Lev. i. 17; and when Samson similarly tears the lion 
down the middle, cf. the act of Engidu, and see further Burney, 
Judges, 358, and plate ii. (4). 

The subsequent purificatory rites (p. 491) are on the same principle 
as those after other cases of bloodshed (see GB. iii. 157 sqq., 165 sqq. ; 
FOT. i. 87 sq., 93 sqq.; Gray, Num. 243 sq.). Men pass through or 
under something, they wash away the stains of blood, they appease 
the spirits of the slain, and in one way or another ceremonially mark 
the cessation of the state of warfare which had been ceremonially 
inaugurated. 

P. 406. Spring Festivats.—In the first lecture of the second series 
of the Burnett Lectures, ‘‘ traces of the sanctity of the month of Nisan 
were shown to exist over a wide area, not only among the Arabs, but 
also among the northern Semites. The Hebrew Passover was older 


1M‘Lennan, Studies in Ancient History, ii. 301; cf. 380 (Aztecs), and Frazer, 
Tot. Ex. ii. 23 (Torres Straits). 


4I 


642 SPRING FESTIVALS 


than the settlement in Canaan, and preserved antique features similar 
to those of the most primitive Arabian sacrifices. In the later forms 
of Semitic religions, as elsewhere among the civilized peoples of 
antiquity, there gradually arose an elaborate cycle of annual feasts— 
a sacred calendar which ultimately was fixed astronomically.”1 On 
the Arab sacrifices in the month Rajab (pp. 227 sq. and n. 3, 465), see 
now Wellhausen, 97 sqg.; Winckler, Altorient. Forsch. ii. 344 sq. ; 
Benzinger, H.Bi. ‘“ Passover”’ (especially col. 3594), and Moore, 1b. 
** Sacrifice,” § 4 sq. (on Spring Sacrifices). 

Among other spring festivals are those of Harran: the first days of 
Nisan being a festival to Beltis (pp. 406 sg., 470 sqg.; Chwolson, ii. 
25, 181); Hierapolis: annual holocausts (pp. 371 n., 375, 406, 471); 
and Cyprian Aphrodite (pp. 291, 470, 472). The Nabatean and 
Palmyrene evidence (p. 407 n.) consists in the frequency with which 
inscriptions are dated in Nisan; cf., for example, the ““symposia’”’ 
(p. 627), and see Lidzbarski, H':phem. il. 304. 

For modern spring circumcision festivals among the Arabs, see 
Doughty, i. 340 sq. (sacrifice of sheep, dancing, the young men select 
wives). The Neby Musa Easter festival, held a few miles to the 
south-west of Jericho, is a time of music and story-telling, of trading 
and of contests, vows are paid, the dead visited, and circumcision rites 
performed (Canaan, JPOS. vi. 117 sqq.). North Syrian Christians in 
the course of their solemn Easter ceremonies place food on the tombs 
(Parry, Six Months in a Christian Monastery, 382 sq.). At Malta a 
spring festival of St. John the Baptist seems to have taken the place 
of an Adonis rite (Baudissin, 129 sqq., citing Wiinsch’s monograph, 
50 sq. [1902]). For a spring festival with traces of fertility rites in 
Algeria, among the Shawiya, and some 150 miles away from the seat 
of the ancient Ausenses with their festival to Athena (Herod. iv. 180), 
see Hilton-Simpson, Folk-lore, xxxiii. 192, Geog. Journ. 1922, Jan., 32. 
For some traces of Easter vegetation rites in Italy and for a Greek 
association of the Resurrection with fertility in general, see above, 
p. 597. In modern Greece certain April dances have very archaic 
features; see Diels (Harnack- Festschrift, 69, 72 n. 4), who cites the 
condemnation by St. Basil of the shameless Easter dances of his day 
(Migne, Patr. Gr. xxxi. 446). 

Possible indications of a spring festival among the Hittites, with 
horse-racing, etc., have been tentatively pointed out by Ehelolf 
(SB. of the Berlin Academy, 1925, p. 269). But by far the most 
valuable evidence is that of the Babylonian spring festival of the 
birth of the year and the union of the solar deity Inurta or (at Lagash) 

1 Life,526. The second course (consisting of three lectures) was delivered from 
fragmentary notes. 


NEW YEAR FESTIVALS 643 


Ningirsu with the goddess Gula or (at Nippur) Bau (KATZ. 371; 
Jastrow, Rel. Bel. 130, 340 sqq.). Traces of specific fertility rites at 
the New Year (spring) are very ancient, to judge from the Assyrian 
festival in the garden of Nebo’s temple in Assyria, where the king, 
priests in masks (evidently representing various gods), and Ishtar 
appear to perform ceremonies connected with the revival of vegeta- 
tion. From a stela of Ur-Nammu (c. 2300 B.c.), it is possible that the 
ceremonial eating of fruit by the king was a significant part of these 
or similar rites.1_ Of special interest are the New Year festivals such 
as were held at Erech in Tishri (autumn) and at Babylon in Nisan 
(spring). Here, in the sixth and later centuries B.c., there was a 
celebration of the death and resurrection of Marduk-Bel, wherein the 
king and the priest took the part of that god and of Nebo respectively. 
On the evening of Nisan 4 there was a recital of the Creation Epic, with 
the birth of Marduk, his victory over the rebels, the establishment of 
the Divine Order, the theft of the Tablets of Destiny, Marduk’s fall— 
Babylon is thrown into confusion in his absence—and his subsequent 
return. Among the features of importance for this note and the 
following, are (1) the ceremonial entry of the Babylonian high priest 
into the very presence of the god on the second of Nisan. Similarly, 
the Jewish high priest goes behind the veil on the Jewish Day of 
Atonement, on the 10th of the (autumnal) New Year (Lev. xvi., Heb. 
ix. 7). To be allowed to see the face of the Pharaoh, thesrepresentative 
of the national god, was a sign of high favour (cf. the Amarna Letters, 
Nos. 148, 165, 286, etc.; CAH. ii. 342). In like manner, it is the 
privilege of the king to be crowned by the god and to see the god in his 
holy chamber, and the Ethiopian Piankhi broke the seals and entered 
the most sacred abode of Re as an assertion of his position as legitimate 
Pharaoh.? 

(2) On the fifth of Nisan the Babylonian king makes his first 
appearance and enters the shrine of Marduk alone. There follows a 
ritual act of humiliation and abdication. The high priest smites the 
king; if he weeps, it is a good sign. After a humble prayer, the king is 
comforted by the priest and receives again the sceptre and other 
insignia of which he had been ceremonially deprived. It was a fateful 
time for the king, and omens were taken from his behaviour—if he 


1 See further, Sidney Smith, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies (1926), 
72 sq.; Rev. d’ Ass. xxi. (1924), 84. 

2 See further, Langdon, Bab. Epic of Creation, 20 sq., JRAS. 1924, p. 69 sq. ; 
Zimmern, Das bab. Neujahrsfest (Der alte Orient, 1926); Pallis, The Babylonian 
Akitu Festival (Copenhagen, 1926). For the texts, see Gressmann, Altorient. Texte 
z. A.T.* 295-322. 

8 Breasted, Anc. Rec. ii. §§ 134, 221 sqq., iv. §§ 806, 871; Hall, CAH. iii, 272 sq. 


644 DAY OF DECREES AND OMENS 


stumbled, it was unlucky. Certain traces of Jewish prayers for 
royalty at the spring or at the autumn New Year appear to indicate 
that the New Year as a time of confirming or renewing kingly majesty 
was known also in Judaism.+ 

(3) The New Year is a time of judgment. On Nisan 8 and 11 
Marduk and the gods assemble in the Chamber of Destiny and decree 
the fates for the coming months. Similarly, at the New Year festival 
of the Yezidis, the god sits on the throne issuing decrees for the year.? 
Survivals of the same belief attached themselves to the period of 
the Jewish Day of Atonement at the autumnal New Year. Late 
tradition differed as to whether the world was created in the first 
month (spring) or in the seventh (autumn). At all events, in the 
seventh month, on the anniversary of the creation of the world, God 
determines the lot of each land, whether it be for war or peace, for 
abundance or famine. According to popular belief, nine days are spent 
in fixing the destiny of individuals, and on the tenth the angels inscribe 
it in the book of fate.® 

(4) It is a well-known belief that the opening day of the year will 
determine the rest (e.g. Nilsson, Archiv f. Rel. xix. 65, 69). References 
to fertility rites at Easter or the New Year have already been made. 
Their appropriateness at this season is obvious. Further, it is some- 
times believed that (a) the decrees for the forthcoming year will affect 
the amount of rainfall, or (b) that the rain at the New Year is especially 
efficacious. Thus, as regards (a), it was a Jewish belief that at the 
beginning of the (autumnal) New Year rain was decreed in accordance 
with the merits of Israel. If Israel sinned, there was only little; if 
she repented, the amount could not be increased, but it would fall 
where it would do most good. If Israel was righteous, much rain 
would be decreed ; if she sinned, the decree could not be revoked, but 
the rain would fall on seas and deserts, so that men would not profit 
from it.4 As for (b), in Morocco the rain of April 27-May 3 has 
baraka and cures sterility, and in Palestine rain in Nisan is especially 


1H. St. J. Thackeray, Septuagint and Jewish Worship (1921), 94; on the New 
Year prayers extolling divine majesty, see Bousset-Gressmann, Rel. d. Judentums 
371 sg. See further, H. Schmidt, Die Thronfahrt Jahves am Fest der Jahreswende 
im Alten Israel (Tiibingen, 1927). 

2 Brockelmann, ZDMG. lv. 388 sqq.; cf. Chabot, J. As., ninth series, vii. 123 sq. 

3 Rosh ha-Shanah, i. 9; see KAT. 515 nn. 9-10; Jew. Encye. “* Atonement (Day 
of),” “New Year”; G. B. Gray, Sacrifice, 303 sq. On the Hebrew parallel 
to the Babylonian “ tablets of fate,” cf. Pss. lxix. 28, Ixxxvii. 6, exxxix. 16, and 
Bousset-Gressmann, 258. 

4 Contrast Matt. v. 45, and see p. 663. In Jubilees xii. 16 sq., Abraham is re- 
buked for his attempt, on the night of the New Moon of the seventh month, to 
determine from the stars the prospects of the year as regards rainfall. 


SIN AND WRONG 645 


valued (Westermarck, Morocco, ii. 177 sqq.). On a water ceremony at 
the well Zamzam at the New Year, believed to affect the supply of 
water throughout the year, see Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 84 sq. 

Finally, (5) the beginning of the year is a new creation and in- 
augurates new conditions.1 The belief that a new stage is introduced 
underlies both the annual Day of Atonement in the autumnal New 
Year (see p. 650) and the significance of the spring New Year at great 
periods in Biblical tradition: (a) the birth of Israel as a nation 
(Ex. xiii. 4), (6) the beginning of the return from exile under Ezra 
(first of the first month, Ezra vii. 9), and (c) the return of Nehemiah 
(Neh. ii. 1).? 

P. 408. AronEMENT.—When it is said that in primitive religion 
“ the sense of sin, in any proper sense of the word, did not exist at 
all” (p. 401), a distinction is being drawn between the modern idea 
of sin as specifically an ethical, moral, or spiritual failing or offence and 
that wider connotation of words for sin, evil, wrong, etc., which charac- 
terizes early stages of thought. Here the infringement of some 
recognized custom or rite is very keenly felt; and men, overwhelmed 
by the fear of the consequences which are expected to follow upon a 
broken taboo, have been known to sicken and even to die. Early 
ideas of ‘‘ wrong” (a convenient term for “‘ sin,” in the widest sense) 
are bound up with unanalysed conceptions of all evil, harm, or distress, 
and enter into all departments of life and thought—illness, accidents, 
loss, defeat, drought, etc. A misfortune is the first and surest sign 
of some defect or offence. Broadly speaking, misfortune will be 
ascribed (1) to a known or unknown fault of (a) the individual him- 
self, or (6) of some other member of the group, whose offence reacts 
upon the whole or some part of the group; (2) to the deliberate malice 
of another individual who has employed “‘ magic’’; or (3) to some 
supernatural cause. Moreover, apart from all positive ills, even fear, 
uneasiness, and malaise are no less indications that something is wrong, 
whereas when things are right there is confidence and relief. Hence 
the problems of sin (wrong) and atonement must be viewed compre- 
hensively along with ideas both of the sacred or holy and all that 
infringes upon it (pp. 161 sqq.), and with ideas of right and righteous- 
ness and all that these involve (pp. 661, 663, 670 sq.). 

Certain taboos and rites of propitiation in war-time have tended to be 

suicidal (see p. 640) ; certain fears as to the consequence of destroying 


1 March 25 was the day of the resurrection of Attis (GB. v. 273), and a world- 
birthday (see Norden, Geburt des Kindes, 14 sqq.). 

2 On the tradition that Joseph was born and was also liberated from prison on 
the autumnal New Year, see Thackeray, JTS. xvi. 194. Ezekiel’s vision of the 
new Israel is on the tenth of the “‘ beginning ”’ of the year (Ezek. xl, 1). 


646 FEAR OF SIN 


animal and insect life, as found among the Jains, would make life 
impossible, were they acted on consistently. In Zoroastrianism there 
are most extreme notions of ritual uncleanness which, as Farnell says, 
must have been idle thunder, else Persia would have been depopulated.? 
Among the Aztecs there was a profound consciousness of sin (HRE. 
v. 637), and their gloomy and cruel rites are as instructive for the psych- 
ology of religion as those current among the Phcenicians (see p. 415). 
Especially in Babylonia was there a very deep sense of sin, an extreme 
sensitiveness—amounting almost to obsession—as regards unknown 
and unwitting offences or oversights. Though ethical ideas are by 
no means wanting, this consciousness of sin, even among advanced 
peoples, is that of wrong in a wide sense, and the passionate laments 
in Babylonian ‘“‘ Penitential Psalms ” are, taken by themselves, no clue 
to the calamity which the penitent bewails.2 But while the Baby- 
lonian hymn may specify the ritual which was overlooked or is now 
to be performed, the Hebrew psalms are conspicuous for the absence 
of the ritual note, so that in Ps. li. 18 sg. the question arises whether 
this is a later liturgical addition, or whether such passages have else- 
where been removed.® 

The various methods of removing “sin” and of gaining relief, 
however mechanical they may become, must owe their rise, re- 
appearance, and reshaping to their psychological efficacy. Among 
primitive peoples, confession of social or ethical wrong-doing is some- 
times enjoined on critical occasions of illness or childbirth, or when 
on an expedition or at war.4’ Though not necessarily a systematized 
rite it affords relief, and it is important testimony to genuine senti- 
ments of moral right and wrong, the absence of which would make the 
history of ideas of righteousness, sin, and atonement unintelligible. 
Sin is commonly conceived along physical lines, e.g. as filth, dirt, etc., 
and the remedial measures are directed upon the victim or sufferer, 
or to the removal of the presumed cause. Among such remedies are a 
pretended emetic (GB. iii. 214), some powerful “‘ medicine ” or pungent 
odour, or the burning of incense (on which ef. Eitrem, 215 sqq.)—evil 
has a bad smell (7b. 212 sq.). Rites of washing, cleansing, etc., are 
especially common. In Egypt the deceased Pharaoh was washed by 


99 


1 Evolution of Religion, 127 sqq. (See ib. Lect. iii. on the ritual of purification.) 

2Cf. Farnell, Greece and Babylon, 154 sq.; G. Driver (ed. D. C. Simp- 
son), 170. 

3 The fine Babylonian prayer to Ishtar (p. 522) concludes with directions for 
the burning of fragrant woods, a drink-offering, the offering of a lamb, and the due 
recital of the prayer thrice, without turning round. 

‘Frazer, GB. iii. 191, 195, 211, 215 sqg.; Belief in Immortality, ii. 189; Hart- 

and, Primitiwe Law, 166. 


REMOVAL OF SIN 647 


various gods, and the ritual asserted that he was ‘‘ righteous.” 1 In 
Babylonia the washing with the pure water of Eridu cleansed a man 
of his evil. The usage is well illustrated in the Syriac story of the 
woman who, as she washed her body, cleansed her thoughts also.? 
Water and fire are frequently employed in old Oriental cleansing 
rites. On gods of light and fire in purificatory ceremonies see Morgen- 
stern, 95. As the sun-god is god of light and life and of right and 
righteousness (p. 659), the antitheses are darkness and evil; and a 
man, praying that his sickness be consumed, adds, ‘ May I see the 
light ” (Jastrow, 316). The fire-god cleanses the patient, making him 
bright like heaven (R. C. Thompson, Sem. Magic, 214). Fire tests and 
purifies (cf. yy, and see H.B.s.v. Furnace). It expels and destroys 
evil or the cause thereof ; note the use, not necessarily always figura- 


tive in its practice, of YA in Deuteronomy, and cf. p. 632. The 


“magical ”’ practices in the Bab. shurpu and maklu ceremonies were 
intended to make a man’s troubles disappear as things disappeared 
in the flames, or, as the magic of wizard or witch (kashshapu, -ptw) 
trembled, melted, and passed away in the fire, so might the sins of 
man. A demon or other cause of disease, ill, etc., will be gently or 
forcibly persuaded to leave a human body and enter a dead animal 
(R. C. Thompson, 180 sqq.) ; and in Palestine the jinn who is the cause 
of a child’s convulsions may be induced by the gift of a pigeon to 
leave its victim (J POS. vi. 46). Rites of transference are well known. 
In Babylonia a pig or a lamb is employed, especially the latter (Dhorme, 
272 sqqg.; Morgen. 111, cf. 115); in the case of a fever a kid is sub- 
stituted (R. C. Thompson, 211), or the fleece of a young lamb may be 
applied to the body of the sick (Morgen. 75 sq.). Evil is transferred to 
something which is destroyed or thrown away ; and when transferred 
to a man, it may be to one who is destroyed (sometimes already a 
criminal), or to a“ sacred ’’ man able to overcome it.® 


1 With this “legitimation ” or “ justification,” Norden (Geburt des Kindes, 
127 sq.) compares 1 Tim. iii. 16. 

2 Burkitt, Huphemia and the Goth, 156. For Egypt, see Blackman, PSBA. xl. 
62 sq.; for Babylonia, Jastrow, Rel. Bel. 306, and cf. Morgenstern, 43. With salahu, 
*“‘ sprinkle with water, remove uncleanness,” cf. Heb. nbp “ forgive.” C. G. and 
B. Z. Seligman (Harvard African Studies, ii. 155 sq.) tell how Kababish women, 
dancing in front of their master who had sacrificed a sheep and cleansed them of 
evil, sang a song the burden of which was “‘ You are our soap.” See, in general, 
Farnell, Evol. of Rel. 157 sq.; Eitrem, 78 sqg.; and p. 556 above. 

8 For details consult GB. ix. (on the Scapegoat); e.g. a Brahman embraces a 
Rajah of Travancore, undertaking to bear away his sins and diseases (@B. ix. 423 ; 
Crawley, Mystic Rose, 94); and among the Bori the healer cures a man by becom- 
ing possessed by the demon, the cause of his disease (Tremearne, Ban of the 
Bort, 20). 


648 FORGIVENESS 


Calamity and suffering are found to be cathartic ; hence pain and 
suffering will be inflicted to compel purgation or to anticipate and 
ward off some calamity assumed to be impending. The man who has 
lost one of his flock has perhaps thereby escaped death—it is a “ ran- 
som” (Ar. fidu, JPOS. vi. 62), and by appropriate and periodical 
sacrifice he may hope to avert doom henceforth. If evil must befall 
the community, let it fall where it is richly deserved; hence the 


6 


‘ wicked ’’ should be a ransom (723) for the righteous (Prov. xxi. 
18). All misfortune has its cause, and the offender can be discovered 
by lot (Josh. vii. 13 sqg.) or by ‘‘ magic”? ; or means will be taken 
periodically to ward off the consequences of evil which has been 
committed, however unintentionally. 

The terminology of forgiveness and the like is instructive (cf. 
CAH. iii. 447 sq.). Sin is a burden to be lifted off. The transgressor 
hides or conceals it, and confession is recommended. One must not 
‘‘ cover”? the face of the judge; but God, whose eyes are too pure 
(‘‘ clean,” ¢-h-7) to look on evil (Hab. i. 13), may “ cover” the sin— 
and “‘ love covers all sins” (Ps, xxxii. 1, Prov. x. 12). The man who 
is forgiven has his face “lifted up”; or he“ sees the face”’ of his lord 
(cf. Driver, l.c. 133); or his sin can be blotted out (Jer. xviii. 23), and 
the tablet upon which it is written may be broken (Driver, 138 ; 
Morgen. 129). An action may be “reckoned” (awn) evil, or the 
judge will ‘‘ pass over it.” Or the god is regarded as an irate avenger 
who must be “‘ mollified”’ (p. 346 and n. 1), or placated with gifts or 
the smell of an offering ; one must hide from his anger (Job xiv. 13), 
unless he “‘ turn away ”’ from it, or he “‘ return’ to the people he had 
forsaken (cf. the moving entreaty to the absent god, Jastrow, Rel. Bel. 
322). The god wreaks his wrath, and thus consoles himself (gn)nn). 
Again, one must cause his heart to rest, appease it ; and in Babylonia 
there was a day of rest for the heart of the god, when he was pro- 
pitiated.2 Or the god is besought not to accept the offering of the 
wicked, acceptance being a token of forgiveness.* 

There are three main types of ideas involved: (1) the anthropo- 
morphic or personal, where there are beings angry or pleased, who 
avenge evil or can turn evil into good; (2) the impersonal, where 
there is, so to say, a mechanism such that sin is (a) the omission of 
what should be done, and what necessarily makes for good, or (b) the 

1 Prov. xxviii. 13. In the Amarna Letters, No. 137, it is called “‘ opening ’» 
(pitu=nnbd). 

2m; cf. the use of Bab. nuhhu. See Hehn, Semaine d’Ethnol. Relig. a Tilbourg 
(1923), 291; Driver, 157. 


3 Um nuh libbi, the 15th of the month ; see Wardle, Jsrael and Babylon, 244. 
4 Num. xvi. 15, Gen. iv. 5 sg.; see Hehn, /.c. 291. 


RETURN AND CHANGE 649 


doing of that which is harmful and has necessary harmful consequences. 
Besides the emphasis laid either upon the supernatural powers or upon 
the processes, there are (3) intermediate types of idea, where the god 
works through the process, and the rites are the recognized means of 
preserving or restoring the relations between people and god. The 
first is characteristic of popular religion, the last of priestly ritualism ; 
while in the second the god recedes more and more into the back- 
ground and disappears. ‘* Sin,” observes Skinner (Gen. 317), 
‘is a violation of the objective moral order.”’ But this is too narrow ; 
among peoples at an undifferentiated stage of thought both sin (or wrong) 
and right(-eousness) involve ideas of universal or cosmic order. Moral 
or spiritual wrong is only one side, though the most vital, of the wider 
conceptions which are at least implicit when convictions of right and 
wrong become oppressive and men feel their inability to escape from 
that chain of cause and effect or that entail of deeds which Indian 
religions so vividly depict. 

According to the prophets of Palestine, the escape from the burden 
of evil, misfortune, and wrong lay in “return” (33W; cf. the later 


nDwn) and perdvoa. A “return” may be said to mark the sterile 


antiquarianism of Egypt (Twenty-sixth Dynasty) and Babylonia 
(sixth century B.c.); but whereas on the traditional view of the 
O.T., post-exilic Judaism is the re-establishment of, or \‘ return”’ to 
Mosaism, on the modern standpoint there had been a change in the 
religious conditions, and instead of a “‘ return” to the past there is 
rather a reassertion of the old in a new form, and the past has been 
re-viewed and re-written. In like manner, the continuity in the devel- 
opment from the O.T. to the N.T. and onwards appears not as any 
“return,” but as a change or development in thought.1 In either case 
there has been progress, though of progress there is no explicit idea. 
When the prophet Ezekiel, calling for a‘* new” spirit or heart (Ezek. 
xi. 19, etc.),demands new energy, will, and mind, or when salvation comes 
in being“ born again,” it is to be observed that even among primitive 
peoples there are rites of renewal and especially of rebirth practised 
at initiation ceremonies and on other occasions when some entirely 
new stage in the life of the individual is realistically manifested and 
endorsed. Such practices are of the greatest psychological interest ; 
they testify to the consciousness of some break between old and new. 
They were developed by the observation of nature. Thus, in Egypt 
the sun-god was reborn every morning from the waters of the primeval 
ocean; and the dead Pharaoh who was identified with him was daily 


1 On apparent “‘ returns ” in the history of thought, see S. A. Cook, Study of 
Religions, 126 sq. 


650 RE-CREATION AND RENEWAL 


reborn.! The return of spring, the beginning of a new year, and finally 
the birth of a new eon built up ideas of new development in history, 
and such ideas culminated in the anticipation of an entirely new heaven 
and earth.2 In this way men felt able to throw off the past and 
hope for a new and unstained age. There are simple and naive 
practices among primitive peoples to symbolize the removal of enmity 
and ill-feeling, and there are periodic rites for the expulsion of evil. 
The Day of Atonement shortly after the beginning of the (autumnal) 
New Year, and the ideas of creation and the determination of fate at 
that period, or in the spring New Year, are thus related to sweeping 
conceptions of restoration and renewal; and not without justice did 
Franz Delitzsch call the Day of Atonement the Good Friday of the 
Law (see #.Bz. col. 385 § 4). 

In view of the supreme, if not cosmic importance of the leading 
representative individuals, it is intelligible that the Babylonian king, 
who, in a sense, stood for his land, should undergo atoning ceremonies 
and make ritual lamentation in order that his land and people should 
not suffer harm. Such as he are par excellence the scapegoats in times 
of misfortune and calamity. Far more elaborate ideas are found in 
India, in the Brahman theory of the daily sacrifice whereby the world 
is daily created afresh by the self-sacrifice of the primordial Purusha out 
of whom the world was made. Maha-Purusha is the vast cosmic man 
who both envelops the earth and transcends it; he becomes the symbol 
of creation, and is also one of the names for ultimate reality.* On one 
view, the world is made of god(s)—Prajapati is creator and produces 
the world out of himself, upholding it and ruling it, as an immanent 
divine power. In less detail it is related how the Scandinavian giant 
Ymir was dismembered by the gods, who created the world out of his 
own body. In Egypt, Osiris became the principle of life, immanent in 
the world, and associated with the fertile soil and the life-giving 
waters.4 Amid such ideas, the conviction of a renewal or regeneration 
on a cosmic scale involved the renewal of the life or energy immanent 
in the world. In this way the Jewish anticipations of a Messiah and of 
a Messianic age which all creation should enjoy find their later develop- 
ment in the Pauline conception both of a groaning creation longing for 
regeneration and of a Christ who is not only the Saviour of Mankind, 
but also the source and sustainer of nature.® 


1 Blackman, PSBA. xl. 60, 63, 65, 89 sq. 

2 See Charles, Comment. on Rev. xxi. 5 (pp. 174 sq., 203 sq.); Bousset-Gressmann, 
Rel. des Judentums?, 243, 280 sqq.; Norden, Geburt des Kindes, 33 sqq. 

3 Estlin Carpenter, Theism in Medieval India (1921), 43 sq., 187. 

4 Breasted, Religion and Thought, 23; cf. p. 597. 

5 See p. 663. For the Messianic king who inaugurates a new age of peace 


— - 


BLOOD, DISINFECTANT OR TONIC » 651 


Such wider and more undifferentiated conceptions of right and 
wrong and of sin and atonement complicate the work of analysis which 
the progress of thought demands. But while W. R. S. is considered 
by some writers to have confused ideas of communion and of expiation 
or placation, on the other hand there has been a tendency to neglect 
those beliefs and practices—at times seemingly of a ‘‘ magical” or 
“* magico-religious ” nature—with which the highly ethical and spiritual 
conceptions of sin and forgiveness have been interwoven. To suppose, 
with Buchanan Gray (Sacrifice, 95), that early sacrifice was more often 
eucharistic than propitiatory or expiatory is, surely, to overlook both 
the early undifferentiated and unspecialized ideas of evil and ill, and 
the fact that early Israel undoubtedly suffered disasters enough to 
call for apotropaic and other rites. But it does not follow that such 
rites were precisely those as described in the middle books of the 
Pentateuch, and it is noteworthy that the most significant of the 
Babylonian New Year inaugural ceremonies are of the age of 
Nebuchadrezzar 11. (c. 605-562 B.c.) and later. 

Highly instructive, on the other hand, is Gray’s criticism (359) of 
W. BR. S8.’s remarks, p. 408 sg. above. Emphasizing the fact that SON 


(Ezek. xlv. 18) is to cleanse of sin—to “‘ unsin”’—he explains the use 
of blood as a disinfectant rather than as a tonic. It is not that the 
altar is, as W. R. S. states, ‘‘ annually refreshed by an application of 
blood” ; the ritual, asserts Gray, is “‘ to rid what is naturally holy from 
intrusive contamination, not to impart fresh positive holiness.” This, 
however, is W. R. S.’s meaning: sin breaks the sacred bond—the 
natural holiness—into which a man is born, and the atoning rites 
re-establish it and there is at-one-ment: “‘ the holiness of the altar is 
liable to be impaired, and required to be annually refreshed...” The 
difference between the two scholars is possibly complicated by the 
choice of the word italicized ; but it involves a very important point : 
Does the blood refresh and make holy ? or does it “‘ unsin”’ and restore 
the holiness ? Elsewhere W. R. 8. remarks: ‘‘ The notions of com- 
munion and atonement are bound up together” (p. 320); by par- 
taking of what is holy the impurity of sin is expelled (p. 356); blood 
‘* refreshes? the sanctity of the worshipper’s life and expels what is 
impure (p. 427). A more careful analysis may inquire whether the 
removal of sin thereby makes a man holy (1.e. forgiven, etc.), and 
whether the act of making a man holy thereby removes sin—contrast 
the medieval double rite: the expulsion of devils prior to baptism 
(on p. 428). For the study of sacrificial and other rites, these questions 


and abundance, see the concise sketch by Hans Schmidt, Der Mythos vom wieder- 
kehrenden Kénig im Alten Testament (Giessen, 1925). 


652 ATONING RITES 


are of more than methodological importance.1 No less important is 
the question whether such analyses as these are primary. Certain 
early attempts at analysis can be traced, though the difference between 
the Jewish sin- and guilt-offerings is not altogether clear (cf. Gray, 
57). Moreover, there are complicated ceremonies of consecration, 
e.g. at the completion of an image in Babylonia, which seem to point 
to attempts to bridge the gulfs between the profane, the sacred, and 
its antithesis—the pollute. As a general rule, in all such matters as 
these it is probable that priestly and popular opinion would be at 
variance: certain rites (with the use of blood, etc.) would be specific- 
ally apotropaic: they kept away some power or influence; or they 
would be distinctively cathartic: they cleansed and purified. But 
to the ordinary man the act of the removal of sin would mean the 
entrance of good, and the cleansing ceremony that washed away evil 
would have sanctifying virtue.2, Everywhere there has been a tendency 
for ceremonies to lose their primary significance ;* but, provided they 
aroused the appropriate feelings of awe and solemnity, they tended 
to afford convictions of relief, reassurance, and confidence which were 
at least subjectively adequate.‘ 


1 Jn Isa. vi. the occasion that arouses a profound consciousness of sin brings the 
cleansing act. How far W. R. S.’s treatment of ideas of atonement among primi- 
tive peoples may have been influenced, however unconsciously, by his Christology, 
may perhaps be understood by reference to Lectures and Essays. 

2 In the purificatory rite in Lev. xiv. two pigeons are required : one is let loose, 
the other sacrificed ; also in the ritual of the Scapegoat (Lev. xvi.) there are two 
goats, one for Azazel, the other for Yahweh (see H.Bi. “ Azazel”), There may 
be here the explicit removal of impurity and the explicit sanctifying act. Further, 
since Azazel, in later times at least, was the leader of the fallen angels, 7.¢. in effect 
Satan, the old ritual may have suggested the antithesis between the prince of life 
(2pxnyés, Acts iii. 15) and the prince of this world (&pxa», John xii. 31, xiv. 30) 
who is to be cast out, and between the sacrificial death of Christ and the entry of 
Satan into Judas (the 3:%80a0, John vi. 70) immediatelyjafter the communion rite 
(xiii. 27). That the Paschal victim is a lamb (sheep) or goat is shown by Gray, 
345 sqq. 

3¢.9. at the present day the sacrificed sheep has an atoning value: it will 
appear on the Day of Judgment and carry the man into Paradise—hence the 
saying, “‘ Our sacrificial animals are our riding animals” (dahaydnd matayana, 
JPOS. vi. 41). Cf. ZATW. xxxv. 130, where the sheep or goat sacrificed seven 
days after a man’s death is eaten by the relatives and the bones buried, if possible, 
in the grave so that the dead may ride (r-k-b) on it when the Day comes. 

4 At the annual ceremony of the Holy Fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 
in Jerusalem, children are brought in the belief that their presence at the ceremony 
will preserve them against the ills of life or ensure their entrance to Paradise (The 
Near East, June 24, 1926, p. 716). Similarly, the belief arose that all who kept the 
Passover would escape death during the year (Jubilees xlix. 15 sq.). Gray (365, 
381 sq.) argues that the Passover rite was not an act of communion but of com- 


SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOOD 653 


In view of the variation in the meaning and application of sacrificial 
atoning and other rites, the question of what—in the happy and ex- 
tremely significant words of Gray (359 n.)—is the “ actual creative 
idea”’ is one to which, whatever be thought of W. R. S.’s theory, 
the systematic study of religion demands an answer.! To regard the 
rites as primarily cathartic or apotropaic is unsatisfactory, because 
the notion of purifying or cleansing a man of evil, etc., or of removing 
untoward influences or the like, implies some considerable pre-existing 
body of beliefs. It is difficult to see how blood could be supposed, from 
any primitive standpoint, to have in itself the cathartic or apotropaic 
virtues which actually come to be ascribed to it. On the other hand, 
the assumption that the blood fed supernatural spirits, placating, 
sating, and otherwise inducing them to act as required, would be in 
accordance with primitive ideas; but it neither follows nor is prob- 
able that this is the primary meaning. Whatseems to be of undoubted 
importance is (a) the extraordinary emotional significance of blood, and 
(b) the fact that the effect is either vague, diffused, though none the less 
powerful, or it is of the most intense significance, e.g. because it is the 
blood of a kinsman. Blood of the kin that is shed for intelligible, 
practical reasons in ceremonies wherein the life and welfare of the social 
group are concerned has a world of meaning. Such rites are an organic 
part of systems of life and thought ; and by reason of theirvery fulness 
and intensity it is easier to trace their weakening, deterioration, and 
disintegration than to conceive how any primary cathartic or apotropaic 
significance of blood could develop into a system. 

Group blood-rites are the most elemental of all ceremonies associat- 
ing men and their gods. On the other hand, spiritual religion—in the 
teaching of the prophets—treats sacrificial rites as of secondary value, 
if not, indeed, unnecessary. ‘“* Propitiation and expiation are to be 
wrought by well-doing alone” (Gray, 89). In contrast to the sacri- 
ficial ideas interconnecting man, god, and the world, it is enough that 
man should do his duty.?. The history of religion in Palestine subse- 
quent to the prophets illustrates the difficulty of determining wherein 
‘* well-doing”’ consists. Confronting a highly developed priestly 
ritual, the ‘‘ Wisdom ”’ literature presupposes the identity of divine 
wisdom and human wisdom, and inculcates reverence for the divine 
law. Further, ‘‘ wickedness is folly, the bad man is a fool.’ ® Sin 


memoration, and was apotropaic; but the popular value of religious ceremony is not 
necessarily so specialized as it might seem, viewed superficially (see Durkheim, 386). 

1 Qn the meaning of the root 153 in particular, see Moore, E.B2. “ Sacrifice,” 
§ 45, and Gray’s discussion, 68 sqq. 

2 Cf. p. 663 on the “ parallelism ” which this implies. 

3 Toy, E.Bi, col. 5328, and his commentary on Prov. xv. 33. 


654 COSMIC MEANING OF SACRIFICE 


is not only wicked, it is unnatural. Contrary to the will of Yahweh, 
contrary to social order, it was contrary to human nature, if not to 
Nature itself; for ideas of a “‘ natural order” were spreading in the Greek 
age. Now when a man felt himself related to or bound up with 
a righteous god, a moral society, or with Nature, he could be conscious 
of order and disorder, right and wrong, and of good and evil. But in 
course of time ideas of what is specifically religious or spiritually 
wrong fade away, especially when it is believed that the god ‘‘ could 
do neither good nor harm”’ (as earlier, in Zeph. i. 12). Corporate 
unity and social justice weaken until “ righteousness” means merely 
‘* almsgiving”’’ (p. 661). Even ideas of an order in Nature—if Nature 
is something quite apart from Man—do not and cannot of themselves 
move men to well-doing. The actual development of religion, so far 
as it can be traced in the Bible and in the history of thought that lies 
behind it, does not belong here; but it is very striking because of the 
close relation between the atoning death of the Servant of the Lord in 
Isa. liii. and the death of Christ. For whereas the former is primarily 
of national import, and for Israel, the latter has also that universal or 
cosmic significance to which attention has been directed, and of which 
there is no hint in Isa. liti. It represents a far more comprehensive 
and undifferentiated interpretation of the Sacrifice, but could only 
have arisen out of Paul’s conviction of the meaning of Christ. 
The combination, at this new stage in the history of religion, 
of the personal and of the cosmic meaning of the Sacrifice can hardly 
be adequately emphasized. 

The more or less cosmic significance of Pharaohs and other repre- 
sentative personalities in early religion must arise, not of course from 
some independent conception of the constitution of the Universe, but 
from the impression they make upon men who both feel themselves 
akin to them and are conscious of unity with the world about them. 
It is through human personality that Nature has a new meaning for us. 
At once this seems to carry with it the priority of anthropomorphic 
types of religion. But the difference between the religion of individuals 
and that of the slow-moving environment with its many practical 
needs must be kept in mind. Ideas both of Right(eousness) and 
At-one-ment take more concrete form, especially among rudimentary 
peoples, where ideas of unity and oneness are not “ spiritual” in the 
modern sense of the word, but are shaped by all that makes for material 
welfare. See further, pp. 657 sqq., 671, 676 sqq. 

P. 419 n.—The execution takes place at a time of drought and 
famine, and the bodies are left until the rain falls. It has been objected 
that the verb yp’ is not used in 2 Chron. xxv. 12, where men are 
cast over a rock, and that the meaning suggested by W. R. 8, hardly 


RIGHTEOUSNESS 655 


suits the preposition “‘ on the mountain” (2 Sam. xxi. 9). In Gen. 
xxxii. 26, the verb seems to mean “‘ rend”’ ; one may perhaps compare 
the use of shdsa‘ (p. 641). See Gray on Num. xxv. 4, and Skinner on 
Gen., and especially Driver on Sam. (Prof. E. H. Palmer, referred to 
in the note, was put to death in August 1892; see Hncy. Brit. and Dict. 
of Nat. Biog.) 

P. 420 n.—For parallels to Deut. l.c. in the Code of Hammurabi 
(§ 23 sq.) and elsewhere, see Cook, Moses and Hammurabi, 255 sq. ; 
CAH. i.? 512, ii. 343; for modern usage see also Qy. St. 1906, p. 14, and 
Sir G. A. Smith, Deut. 251. 

P. 421.—The argument is not affected by the fact that 2 Sam. xxi. 1 
should read ‘‘ on Saul and on his house is bloodshed.” 

P. 422 n. 3.—See Wellhausen?, 171, and Gétting. Gel. Nachr. 1893, 
p. 455. For an Assyrian parallel, see Jastrow, Rel. B.A. ii. 95 (ills 
removed by means of bird, fish, etc.). 

P. 426. Dermine tHE Hanns (cf. p. 452).—See Budde, H.Bz1. 
“Canon,” §§3 sq., 53; Holscher, Kanonisch und Apokryph. 4 sq. 
(Naumburg, 1905). In spite of the natural meaning of taémé’, and 
the fact that the question was even asked whether the unwritten 
margins and outer covers defiled the hands, other explanations are 
still hazarded, e.g. that the reference is to the Levitical purity of 
the individual, who must avoid being defiled. 3 

P. 429. RiaguTrousnress.—The Semitic root s-d-k appears to 
connote congruence, fitness for purpose, conformity to an expected 
norm or standard.1 Arabic derivatives are used of agreement with 
a conception or a statement ; a verbal form denotes earnest fighting, 
without pretence; and the adjective means “ genuine, what is as it 
should be” (whether of a javelin or of the date-fruit; also of eyes 
and ears). The objection that such general ideas as being fit, true, 
comme il faut, etc., can hardly be primitive (so, e.g., Skinner, Hastings’ 
D.B. iv. 274a) confuses the perception of metaphysical facts with the 
capacity for metaphysical reasoning.” There can scarcely be any- 
thing more primitive than the intuitive recognition whether persons 
or things do or do not answer normal expectation or conform to their 
ordinary or expected behaviour. Again, when W. R. 8S. (Prophets, 
389; cf. 71 sq.) holds that Kautzsch’s idea of conformity ‘‘ perhaps 
is too wide, and does not lay sufficient weight on the distinctly forensic 
element,” it may be urged (a) that early conceptions of social right and 


1See Kautzsch’s oft-cited monograph on the subject (1881), 58 sqg.; cf. also 
Gordon, ERE. x. 780 n. 1. 

2 Cf. Momerie’s reply to Matthew Arnold’s objection that early Israel could have 
had no conception of the “ personality ” of God (Inspiration and other Sermons, 68) 
cited by T. H. Sprott, Inspiration and the Old Testament, 98 sg. (Camb. 1909). 


? 


656 IDEAS OF RIGHT AND TRUTH 


wrong were closely bound up with ideas of what we call ‘“‘ natural ”’ 
or ‘“‘ cosmic” order, (b) that specifically ‘* forensic ’’ conceptions imply 
a differentiation and a specialization which do not occur at the earliest 
stages of social development, and (c) that even so special a term as the 
Hebrew misipat, “‘ judgment,” is used of what is customary and 
characteristic. And the same reply may be made to Baudissin, who, 
in a survey of the distribution of the root, considers that, while it 
expresses the notion of correspondence to given conditions or ex- 
pectations, the fundamental meaning is juridical. It is essential, 
then, to bear in mind in this note that “ righteousness ”’ is only one of 
possible translations of sedek and other derivatives, and that “ right,” 
or “ rightfulness ”’ or “ rightness ”’ would often be preferable. 


In fact, s-d-k belongs to a chain of ideas which are so far-reaching 
that T. W. Rhys Davids urged that a primitive “‘ normalism,” an 
intuitive consciousness of cause and effect, is more significant for early 
religion than theories of “‘ animism” (Proceedings of the British 
Academy, 1917-18, pp. 279 sqq.). He illustrated his argument from 
Confucianism, with its recognition of a cosmic order (both physical and 
social), and Lao-Tsze’s doctrine of the universal Tao in harmony with 
which man should live. In the Vedic Rita there is a cosmic order above 
and before the gods ; and in the Buddhist Dhamma lies a normalistic 
idea, the essence of the Buddhist reformation.2, These and other 
interrelated ideas were independently treated by J. Estlin Carpenter, 
‘“* Early Conceptions of Law in Nature,” Hibbert Journal, 1923, July, 
771 sqq. (cf. Ency. Brit. xxiii. [1911], 71). Already Carnoy (JAOS. 
xxxvi. [1917], 306 sqq.) had observed the points of contact between 
Rita, the Zoroastrian Asha (Arta), and the Greek Moira; and Eduard 
Meyer had previously associated Rita and Asha with the Greek Themis 
and the Egyptian Ma‘at or Me‘et (Gesch. Alt. 1. [1907-9], §§ 75, 587, 590). 
Ma‘at, whom Diodorus Siculus identified with Aletheia, with whom in 
turn Plutarch equated Asha, was goddess of truth, justice, right or 
righteousness ; the particular meaning varies according to the par- 
ticular connexion in which it is used.* Further, James Drummond 
(Hibbert Journal, 1902, Oct., 83 sq.), on the “‘ Righteousness of God,” 
argued that Sikavos meant properly ‘‘ conformable to right” ; it was 
not primarily a forensic term, but implied some objective, external 
standard which righteous prophets and judges declare (cf. #.Bz. col. 
4103 and n. 1). Aiky, too, is the established way of things, the way 
they happen; see Miss Jane Harrison, Themis, 516 sq. (Cambridge, 
1912), who notes, after A. B. Cook, the use of Sixais, “ breeding 
true’; her book and that of F. M. Cornford, From Religion to Philo- 
sophy (s.vv. Dike, Rita, Tao [1912]), furnish good evidence for the 


1 See his essay, Der gerechte Gott in altsemit. Rel., in the Harnack-Festgabe, 1-23 
(Tiibingen, 1921). 

2See Mrs. Rhys Davids, Buddhism: a Study of the Buddhist Norm (1912), 
32 sqq., etc. (on Dhamma as moral law, ideal, standard, uniformity of sequence, 
etc.). 

3 Breasted, Rel. and Thought in Ancient Egypt, 116, 225 n. 


IDEAS OF ORDER 657 


use and distribution of all these and other interconnected conceptions, 
and recognize their importance for the early history of religion. 


The conception of an undifferentiated cosmic order—moral, social, 
physical, or natural—which makes things what they are, and as they 
should be, is perhaps seen most completely in the old Vedic term 
Rita.? In the corresponding Iranian Arta (Asha), social and moral 
order is singled out. But in both there is a world-order, which is 
partly inherent in things, and partly guarded, sustained, or fathered 
by specific gods who are of a marked ethical character (Varuna and 
Mitra ; Ahura-Mazda). These and the other interrelated terms have 
multifarious, but quite explicable, nuances. There are tendencies to 
make the order or principle an independent authority; the gods 
themselves are subordinate to it, or it comes to be more or less of a 
deity in its own right. On the other hand, the emphasis may be laid, 
not upon the process, but upon the god who controls, contains, or 
informs it. Thus Ahura-Mazda becomes himself Righteousness and 
Justice; and although there were tendencies to make the Indian Rita 
an independent deity, they were not pursued as they were in the case 
of the Chinese Tao. 

A survey of the data discloses a vast range of ideas concerning 
(a) the more undifferentiated or the more specialized ideas of Order— 
such Order being cosmic, departmental, social, etc.; (b), the varying 
relations between the ideas of Order and the ruling gods ; and (c) the 
diverse powers and functions of such gods, who are, in turn, cosmic, 
departmental, tribal, etc. Certain developments are fairly clear. In 
the transition from the old Vedic cosmic Rita to the more specialized 
Iranian Asha, the Zoroastrian prayers are found to reflect a higher 
conception of righteousness (Farnell, Evolution of Religion, 216 sq.). 
Again, when the ideas of cosmic Order were divorced from the ideas 
of guardian or other gods (like Varuna and Rita), the way lay open for 
a more objective estimate of “‘ natural’’ Order, as something distinct 
from the gods and their relations to man or nature, though the explicit 
idea of “nature” is late. Further, not all gods had the striking 
ethical traits of a Varuna; and it was easy to feel that there was a 
cosmic Law or Order, heedless of man, uncontrolled by benevolent or 


1 For the inclusion of the Semitic s-d-k among these terms, see S. A. Cook, 
CAH. ii. 398. To the bibliography (ib. 669 sg.) may be added Bertholet-Lehmann, : 
Lehrbuch d. Rel. Gesch. i. (1924), 80, on primitive ideas of right, law, necessity, etc. 

2 Besides the references already made, see A. B. Keith, Religion and Philosophy 
of the Vedas and Upanishads, i. 83, 246 (Harvard, 1925). 

3 Diké is personified in Hesiod; see J. L. Myres, Political Ideas of the Greeks, 
108 sqq.; cf. also 100, 103, and his whole discussion of the meanings and fluctuations 
of Diké, Themis, Physis, Arkhé, and other interrelated terms in Greek thought. 


42 


658 CAUSES OF ORDER 


ethical gods, and without the moral qualities of Asha, and one beneath 
which man was helpless. 

All the conceptions of Order, Norm, etc., were bound up with ideas 
of cause and effect. Even the most primitive races have a large stock 
of ordinary empirical knowledge as to how things are done; and as all 
else belongs to the sphere of the “ religious”’ or “* magical,” life’s 
difficulties can be met by resort to appropriate “ religious ” or “ magi- 
cal” beliefs and practices. The question whether the processes 
necessary for life and welfare were ‘“‘ natural” or otherwise would turn 
upon the ordinary knowledge and upon the religious or magical ideas 
of the day ; but, throughout, men could only hope for success by con- 
forming with current procedure. There is an Order of Things, a Way 
such that by the appropriate Methodos men can live. There are vital 
needs (fertility, growth, etc.) which can be satisfied directly or in- 
directly through the gods, etc. ; and men resort to special individuals 
who are helpful, either through their relation to the gods, or through 
the powers with which they themselves are credited. On the one 
hand, there are individuals who, by their influence with the gods or with 
certain “‘ processes of nature’’—as we might say—stand in a uniquely 
close relationship to all that which makes things act as they should. 
On the other, such individuals will come to be regarded as in some way 
responsible for the maintenance of this Order. Salt of the earth, 
pillars of society, they are in a sense the sustainers of things, and we 
can distinguish between those who are felt to be generally responsible 
for human welfare (the old priestly kings, for example) and those 
‘* specialists ’> who have special, not general powers, and are concerned 
with a special department of nature. But both classes must observe 
certain taboos—Mana and Taboo are complementary (p. 552). That 
Social Order (specifically ‘‘ Righteousness ’’), the Order of the Universe, 
and Divine Order are in some way intimately related is the “‘ theory ”’ 
running through all religion: there are processes to be utilized, con- 
trolled, or exploited. So, the evil conduct of a representative tndi- 
vidual (e.g. a king) or of a people (Israel) can have a prejudicial effect 
upon sources of life (cf. p. 537); the later Zoroastrian ritual not only 
gains the help of the gods but also assists them to work for good,* and 
the Lama whose praying-wheel is in sympathetic touch with the 
Cosmic Wheel would overthrow the processes of nature were he to 
turn it in the wrong direction. 

Primarily, the conceptions of Order take a social or rather a 
mythological form. Ma‘at, “‘ truth, righteousness,” etc., was associ- 
ated with several Egyptian gods, and pre-eminently the Sun-god Re, 


1G. F. Moore, History of Religions, i. 390; cf. the influence of the Brahman 
ritual, 1b. 265. 


i a aa “Aa Po) 


aan ee eee ee ee 


EMBODIMENTS OF ORDER 659 


who was its creator. Ma‘at was the daughter of Re—cf. the relation of 
Diké to Zeus ; and in Babylonia, where both the Moon-god Sin and 
the Sun-god Shamash have marked ethical traits, the children of the 
latter are Justice (ketiw) and Uprightness (mésharu); the first of these 
was also known as the child of the supreme god Anu. In Babylonia, 
ideas of inflexible order and fate were interwoven partly with astral 
ideas, partly with arbitrary gods and spirits. As the old religion broke 
down, the spread of the ethical cult of Ahura-Mazda hastened the more 
objective study of the stars; while its dualism, with the conflict of 
Good and Evil, Truth and Lie, was the natural development and more 
ethical restatement of earlier ideas of cosmic order and disorder.2, What 
uprightness and justice meant from ancient though advanced social 
standpoints can be seen in the Code of Hammurabi (the “ darling” 
of the Sun-god) with its rigorous lex talio, and in familiar Egyptian 
papyri.? While Ikhnaton reiterates his favourite title—an old one— 
‘* living in righteousness (or truth),” his age is conspicuous for a natur- 
alism in art which delighted to depict things as they truly and rightly 
were—though not without some exaggeration (see Breasted, CAH, 
ii, 120; Hall, 7b. 411). His solar monotheism inculcated a single 
pervading and benevolent life-giving principle, and of his god Aton 
he was the beloved son, issuing from the god’s body and rays. The 
Egyptian kings, as earthly sons and representatives of the Sun-god, 
were sustainers of “‘ righteousness’’ ; and, in view of primitive convic- 
tions of the disastrous results of wrong-doing, the “ righteousness ”’ of 
the ruler and representative of the group was vital. In Zoroastrianism 
the king must reign according to Order (Asha) and Glory (Hvarenah), 
and the fall of the latter into evil hands would cause desolation and 
disturbance. It is the Order with which Yima established the world, 
and confusion resulted when the Dragon carried it away, as also in 
the old Babylonian myth when the theft of the Tablets of Destiny 
imperilled mankind. 

Of the Semitic uses of the root s-d-k the most striking is the term 
‘PIys& used in Nabatzan inscriptions enumerating those entitled to 
be buriedinatomb. A “‘ legal kinsman ”’ of some sort, it is not certain 
whether the emphasis lies on his rights or in the fact that he is one of 


1 Cf. the fine hymns to Shamash in Gressmann, Aliorient. Texte z. A.T.? 244 sqq. ; 
also G. Driver in The Psalmists (ed. Simpson), 169. The old Sumerian solar 
Babbar of Larsa was also Lord of Justice. Apart from proper names (e.g. Ammi- 
zaduga), probably of western (Amorite) origin, the root s-d-k does not seem to occur 
in Babylonian. 

2 Jastrow, Rel. Bel. 60 sqq., 252 sqqg., 257. For ideas of fate, see Fichtner 
Jeremias, Schicksalsglaube bei d. Babyloniern (Leipzig, 1922). 

3 Breasted,Xop. cit. ch, vii, 


660 KINSHIP AND RIGHTEOUSNESS 


the near kin: thus Néldeke compares the Syriac zdd‘ké “‘ relations ”’ 
(Cooke, 226). Similarly, in Pheenician, psy j2 seems to denote a 
“legitimate” prince, and p7y mp¥, which is the “ legitimate shoot” 
in the Larnax Lapéthos inscription, in Jeremiah xxiii. 5 denotes 
rather the ‘‘ righteous shoot ”’ to be raised up to David.1 But when a 
king of the neighbouring city of Lapéthos bears the name sop 
(Cooke, 349; fifth century B.c.), its meaning is presumably, not that 
the “‘ king (or the god Milk) is legitimate,’ but rather that he is 
‘“‘right(eous)”?; cf. the name J(eh)ozadak, where the attribute is 
applied to Yahweh.? A connexion can readily be found if the deriv- 
atives of the root s-d-k, like kin and kind, or gens, genus, and generous, 
go back to ideas of group-unity and the appropriate behaviour among 
the members of the group, which, of course, properly included the 
group-god. Right(eous)ness, then, would be “conformity to the 
obligations which bind together not merely the social unit, but that 
organic unit of which the deity formed part.” * More than esprit de 
corps, it makes the group what it should be, and it involves a standard ; 
the true member is “ loyal” rather than “‘ legal,” and his “ legitimacy ” 
carried with it a superior noblesse oblige. Such a view of s-d-k would 
accord with W. R. S.’s fundamental theory of the group (and god)- 
system and its significance for the development of religion. Indeed, 
while preferring the forensic meaning of righteousness, he himself 
observes that even “‘ forensic righteousness’ involves kindness and 
truth, which are the basis of society; and he significantly explains 
hésed (‘‘ loving-kindness ”’) as ‘‘ the virtue that knits together society,”’ 
citing the use of the Arabic hashada to connote combined hospitality.‘ 

But s-d-k is no abstract righteousness, for all things that are done 
rightly will turn out right. Things which are normal, right, true to 
type, etc., have conformed with effective principles, and therefore any 
action that is effective must meet with its inevitable consequences, 
or—more neutrally—causes and effects are inevitably interconnected. 


So mUAR, ‘‘ wisdom,” is also its result, ‘‘ success,” and the Syrian 
zakki “justify,” issues in zakuthd, “victory”; but no less does 
** guilt ”’ (1) mean “‘ punishment.” Yahweh’s universal righteousness 


1 Cooke, 86; see Clermont-Ganneau, Rec. v. 366, vi. 162 ; Lidzb. ii. 155. 

2 Similarly, Artaxerxes means the legitimate or true sovereignty. 

3§. A. Cook, JTS. 1908, p. 632 n.; cf. Hapositor, 1910, Aug., 120. Among 
parallels, note the suggestion of Scheftelowitz that 778 in Ezra iv. 14 stands for 
aryaka, ‘‘ as befits an Aryan.” 

4 Prophets, 408 sg. The more Aramaic hesda means “ shame, reproach”; cf. 
Arab. hasada, “envy,” and the relation between “jealous ” and “zealous.” The 
root idea may mean combined or united action, differentiated into (1) hospitality 
and (2) giving one, so to speak, the “‘ cold shoulder.” 


REWARD OF RIGHT-NESS 661 


made the punishment of an unrighteous Israel inevitable; but her 
subsequent conviction that she had paid the penalty and was 
““right(eous)”’ as against her enemies “‘ constituted a claim on the 
righteousness of God for the vindication of Israel’s right ’’ (Skinner, 
Comment. on Isa. xl.—lxvi. p. 241). Good and evil are quasi-mechanical 
processes, and things which are felt to be good or evil have their 
corresponding causes; though in Israel the “ righteousness” of 
Yahweh was the guarantee—so taught the prophets—that there was 
nothing arbitrary in his treatment of men. Later, the Jewish doctrine 
of “ merits’? continues to show how naturally causes and effects 
tended to be considered in terms of value, and how readily the con- 
victions of inevitable consequences allowed the belief that there was, 
so to say, an inherent or immanent process which “ meritorious ”’ 
behaviour set in motion, utilized, or controlled. 

The judge (shdphét) acted in accordance with Yahweh’s ordinances, 
the customary usages and standards (mishpdt), and the knowledge of 
what ought or ought not to be done in Israel. But to “ judge”’ the 
righteous is to “* deliver ” him (cf. 1 Sam. xxiv. 15); and the “‘ judges ” 
of Israel deliver a penitent people from their oppressors (Judg. 1i. 
11 sqq.). ‘‘ Righteousness” and “ deliverance”? become synony- 
mous, and deliverance or salvation (yyw‘) means some “ visible 
delivery and enlargement from distress’? (OZJC.* 441). Righteous 
acts are those by which Yahweh manifests his “‘ covenant faithfulness ” 
(Burney on Judg. v. 11); he shows his righteousness in the “ salva- 
tion” of his people (Kautzsch, Hastings’ D.B. v. 633 n.). Israel’s 
‘* righteousness ’’ becomes, in effect, her material prosperity in token 
that her right is ‘‘ acknowledged and declared by God ” (Skinner, 242). 
In other words, Israel has her “ rights,’ and she obtains them 
through Yahweh, even as the individual got his through Yahweh’s 
representatives, the judges or Hldhim (see Driver on 1 Sam. ii. 25). 
It is no mere play upon words, then, to say that a man’s “ rights ” 
essentially turned primarily upon his “ righteousness,” 7.e. upon his 
behaviour in the group of which he was an organic part (see p. 637). 
Such variations and developments are intelligible, and it is not sur- 
prising that in both Rabbinical Judaism and the Coran “ righteous- 
ness” should manifest itself specifically in ‘‘ almsgiving.” 

It is disputed whether, like the tendencies to deify Tao, Dike, etc., 
there was actually a god S§-d-k.1 ‘‘ Righteousness ”’ is naturally a most 
essential attribute of tribal or national gods, who safeguard the unity 
and welfare of their worshippers ; and personal names predicate it of 
Yahweh, El, and the Syrian Ramman (i.e. Hadad). Itis also attributed 

1See Burney, Judges, 41 sqg.; and, in favour of the view, Baudissin in the 
Harnack-Festgabe, 8, 10, 15. 


662 IMMANENT ORDER 


to the god Milk (or the king as the group-representative) and to ‘Am, 
t.e. the god of that name, or the “ group,” or the “ uncle” as the 
representative of the group. The last case is of special interest. The 
‘am or group is knit together by a common life—the hayy (Kinship, 
44, 46, and commentaries on 1 Sam. xviii. 18); and the corporate life 
of a group is more recognizably divine when there is a god ‘Am, or the 
group bears a divine name, e.g. Gad (pp. 506, 547; cf. Meyer, Gesch. 
Alt. i. § 343). Names indicating that gods are brothers or fathers of 
their worshippers are also highly significant for that close unity of 
gods, men, and the world which appears to be implied in the root 
s-d-k. But these names tended to fall out of use (p. 510), the intimate 
and natural bond between Israel and Yahweh was balanced by the 
insistence upon his transcendence, and the familiarity and confidence 
which characterized Israel’s relations with Yahweh were checked by 
the doctrine that Israel had no merits of her own. That is to say, 
against those tendencies which would have made Yahweh a god 
immanent in his people, or in nature, a god who was the inherent 
sustainer of all things, or even a food-god, a vegetation spirit, or a 
nature-god (cf. pp. 578, 597)—tendencies which one would look for in 
the Baal cults—there are those recurring and more characteristic 
tendencies which make him independent of and above men and nature, 
through whom he works, and his Transcendence and not his Imman- 
ence is the dominant note of the teaching of the prophets. If, as the 
prophets taught, Yahweh was bound by an Order or Law of “ Right- 
eousness ’’ uniting people and their god, it was a transcendent principle 
of which man had only imperfect knowledge. The ethical god 
Varuna may be compared; but it is to be observed that the Semites 
had no concept corresponding to the unidfferentiated Rita, and that 
Yahweh—to the prophets—stood for social righteousness, and was 
behind and over nature.’ 

In the N.T. the conceptions of Righteousness and the like are at 
a more highly developed stage. There is a Way—and as such it is 
comparable to the Chinese Tao—and Christ both teaches the way and 


1In Melchisedek, Adonizedek, Zadok, etc., the s-d-& idea is connected with 
Jerusalem (CAH. ii. 397 sq., 400). The connexion is more particularly with the 
Lord (Adén), Yahweh (J[ehJozadak), Milk or the king (? priest-king), also with the 
Jerusalem priesthood (Zadokites), and, later, with the “‘ Sadducean ” aristocracy 
(cf. H.B1. 4106 n. 1). That Jerusalem should be the seat of s-d-k (Isa. i. 26, Jer. 
Xxxi. 23) is in keeping with the significance attached to Zion as the source of uni- 
versal right and religion (Isa. ii. 2-4), to the Temple as a mystical centre, and to the 
Temple ritual. 

2 In Isa. xlv. 8, sédek is poured down from above and sedakahsprings up from the 
earth; a distinction between universal order and social order has been drawn by 
Whitehouse (Century Bible Commentary). 


MAN AND COSMIC ORDER 663 


tsit. Christis also head of the spiritual group, and an elder “‘ brother ”’ 
(Heb. ii. 11) ; He is one with the group (John xv. 4 sqq.), and kindness 
shown to the least of the group is done to Him (Matt. xxv. 40). But 
Christ is also the basis of existence, “‘ the continuous immanent prin- 
ciple of order in the Universe.’ He is “‘ the principle of cohesion in 
the Universe ; He impresses upon creation that unity and solidarity 
which makes it a cosmos instead of a chaos.” ! He is also a cosmic 
power regenerating at once man and nature (Rom. viii. 19 sqq.). 
Further developments along such lines explain the pantheistic Logion 
and the Manichzean conception of Jesus as virtually a vegetation 
spirit (above p. 597). But tendencies to a Christ immanent in nature 
were not developed. On the other hand, such a passage as Matt. vi. 
25-33 (“Seek ye first . . . his righteousness ”’) reflects the explicitly 
spiritual conception which distinguishes Christianity as a social-religious 
movement. That is to say, spiritual religion with its imitatio Dei has 
all the practical consequences necessary for man’s elementary needs, 
and stands in contrast to those less spiritual and more physical con- 
ceptions of the source of life and growth and to the magical or magico- 
religious ideas which in some way connect, if they do not virtually 
identify, man and part or whole of nature.” 

In primitive religion, Mana and Taboo are correlative. Conse- 
quently, social disorder, or the failure to be “‘ righteous,” is commonly 
believed to disturb the order of nature upon which mendepend. Butin 
advanced spiritual religion there is implied what may be called a theory 
of “ parallelism ’’—conformity to spiritual laws and the increasing 
recognition of all that makes for social order corresponding to the 
order which men find in the Cosmos. The belief that social disorder 
upsets cosmic order tends gradually to die: the rain falls alike on the 
righteous and the unrighteousness (Matt. v. 45; contrast Zech. xiv. 
17 sg., and see p. 644). Similarly, some centuries earlier, at an age of 
far-reaching social and political changes and the introduction of 
refined conceptions of Righteousness, Israel is assured that Yahweh 
will be true to His covenant and there will be no more destruction 
(Gen. viii. 21 sq., ix. 11-17; Isa. liv. 9 sqg.; contrast Gen. vi. 5-7). A 
less ideal age is foreshadowed ; but inasmuch as man is no longer 
deterred from evil by the fear of catastrophic penalties, the develop- 
ment implies a very striking advance both in knowledge and in con- 
ceptions of man’s increased free will and correspondingly increased 


1 See, respectively, Bishop Gore, Reconstruction of Belief (1926), 378, 389 (on 
the ‘‘ activities of the Son of God in nature ”’), and Lightfoot on Col. i. 18. 

2 Indications of “‘ spiritual’ religion can be found in early Egypt: ‘“‘ more 
acceptable ”’ in the sight of the Sun-god (¢.e. the god of Truth, etc.) “is the nature 
of one just of heart than the ox of one that doeth iniquity ” (Gardiner, JHA. i. 34). 


664 DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS 


responsibility. Accordingly, it is possible to trace some vital advances 
in the development of ideas of man’s place in the Cosmos, and to con- 
trast this evidence for an absolute development in the history of 
religious and related thought with the more primitive and persistent 
convictions of a more or less “‘ magical” interpenetration of man and 
nature, and with other tendencies away from distinctively spiritual 
types of religion. 

The higher ideal of dixkavocvvn, which Jesus demanded (Matt. v. 20), 
marks a creative age with which it is legitimate to compare the 
prophets’ teaching of Yahweh’s demands upon his people Israel. 
Much earlier, at a period of disturbance—approximately the Mosaic 
age—traces of interrelated ideas of Truth and Order can be recognized 
in Egypt and South-West Asia (CAH. ii. 399 sqq.). But what s-d-k 
connoted in the fourteenth century can scarcely be determined ; 
though in one of the Amarna Letters Abdi-hiba, king of Jerusalem, 
assures the divine Pharaoh of Egypt that he is “ loyal” (No. 287 saduk).+ 
Nor, again, can one conjecture how Ammi-zaduga, who lived a century 
after the law-giver Hammurabi, would interpret his name, ‘‘ ‘Am (my 
‘Am ?) is righteous.’ All that need be said is that the interrelated 
terms of truth, order, righteousness, are such as to admit of continual 
restatement and reinterpretation. 

The period from the age of the prophets and their doctrine of 
Yahweh’s righteousness to the reconstruction of religion which subse- 
quently ensued, is one of transition from social and political disturb- 
ance and unrest to what was ultimately a new reintegration (p. 592 sq.). 
The defects of all group-religion are obvious (pp. 256 sqq., 266 sq.), and 
from the weakness of the relationship between Israel and Yahweh 
one passes—though the steps are far from clear—to a new relationship 
which at length finds its expression in the Pentateuch and post-exilic 
Judaism.” A fixed social or national group-system is replaced by a 
legalistic religious system, and in due course the defects of narrow 
conceptions of “ righteousness’ again made themselves felt. Con- 
formity to specified requirements, and an exaggerated estimate of the 
significance of the Torah for the world, induced a religious compla- 
cence and arrogance recalling that which the prophets had previously 


1 The king’s name can be read Arta-hiba, to correspond to Zedek-iah (‘‘ Yah’s 
righteousness ””); see Burney, Judges, |xxxvi, after Hommel (ef. his Hthnol. 29 n, 3) 
and Dhorme (Revue Biblique, 1909, p. 72). 

2 The ideas are set forth in the Pentateuchal history of the deliverance from 
bondage, the discipline of people and leaders, and the inculcation of law and justice 
(cf. Prophets, 40). The ideas in this composite history have a value quite apart 
from the particular views which the writers have of the birth of Israel as a nation 
in or about the fourteenth century B.c. 


THEIR SOCIAL ORIGIN 665 


condemned. Moreover, the Chinese belief that the study of the old 
Classics was indispensable for the maintenance of Tao or Universal 
Order would have found its parallel in Palestine, where Piety spelt 
Knowledge of the Torah. On the one hand, then, the exaltation of 
the Torah and the possession of an infallible Way encouraged a false 
security. On the other hand, the consciousness that the Law was 
spiritual (Rom. vii. 12-14), but its requirements beyond man’s unaided 
efforts, and that the alternative to group-righteousness was outlawry 
and expulsion, associates Paul’s attitude to the Torah with the primi- 
tive and recurring conceptions of the place of the individual either 
within or without the group-system of men and their god.? 

Baudissin (op. cit. 16 sqq., 22), observing that s-d-k is the only certain 
early attribute of the gods—it is not applied to goddesses—looks for 
a social or tribal origin of the fundamental idea, and suggests that it 
grew up out of alliances. Undoubtedly the consciousness of disorder, 
injustice, and lawlessness drives home the need for order, justice, and 
law, and social and religious incoherence arouse the desire for a new 
state of cohesion. It is proper, therefore, to see in new social alliances, 
indeed in all new unifying efforts and their immediate results, the more 
explicit recognition of principles which, though they may have become 
conspicuously absent, are those upon which all social and religious 
systems must, as systems, necessarily be founded. P 

Every new unity is virtually a “‘ confederation,” based upon an 
agreement, rather than a natio which has come into being.® For in 
alliances (see above, pp. 316 sqq.) the parties are (a) the group (or 
individuals) and their god, or (b) the group (with or without the explicit 
inclusion of their god) and another group (or individuals). Now there 
are, as W. R. S. shows, well-known ceremonies whereby communion or 
fellowship is either renewed or it is created, the corporate spirit is either 
confirmed or it is extended. But while every group has in its posses- 
sion ceremonies of a unifying character, a distinction must be drawn 
between the more ordinary and periodic rites and those more intense 
and impressive occasions when the situation demands some fresher 
and more effective and more compelling means of indicating its unique- 
ness, or of making it the inauguration of some new unity or fellowship. 


‘ 


1 See Bousset-Gressmann, Rel. des Judentums®, 187 sq. Tao means “ road,” 
** Tf we were compelled to adopt a single word to represent the Tao of Lao-tsze, we 
should prefer the sense in which it is used by Confucius, ‘ the way,’ 1.e. wilde, ” 
(R. Douglas, Confucianism and Taouism, 189). 

2 In contrast to the “loyalty ” of Abdi-hiba of Jerusalem in the Amarna Letters 
is the “ curse ” (ararw=118, Nos. 179, 193) on those guilty of “ sin,” z.e. disloyalty 
(hitu=xon, Nos, 162 sq., 353 sq.). 

3 On the use of bérith, “‘ covenant,” for ‘‘ nation, people,” see #.Bi. 931. 


666 UNION IS RE-UNION 


I 


Such ceremonies stand out above the rest for their impressiveness and 
effects. In course of time the impressiveness wears off, the sense 
of fellowship weakens, and the unity once more becomes impaired. In 
fact, there recur, not only in the great stages of religion in history, but 
in the vicissitudes of all social and religious systems, alternating 
periods of unity and disunity, differing obviously in duration and 
significance. Hence what may be called a‘‘ natural society ”’ (p. 29 sq.) 
is hardly some absolute primary stage in human development, but 
an abstraction, a legitimate generalization of the normal conditions 
which have come into being, whose disintergation and subsequent 
reintegration may be followed, but whose prior stages and their in- 
auguration are unknown or ignored. 

W. RB. 8.’s analysis is concerned mainly with part only of the great 
recurring social-religious processes in history ; and although he starts 
from the ‘“ natural society,’ every such society has had its earlier 
inaugural stage. Now ceremonies of union, communion, and fellowship 
vary generally in significance and intensity, and the question arises 
whether there is any essential difference between them, or whether the 
most impressive and vital more closely resemble each other than those 
that are more normal and regular. The supreme importance of 
W.RB.S.’s problem has always been recognized ; its interest is enhanced 
when it is remembered that it grew naturally out of his earlier years, 
when the Reformation and the need for a new formulation of Christian 
theology lay near his heart (see the Introduction). Consciously or 
not, he passed from the essentials of Christian communion and social 
unity to the more theoretical study of the fundamental ideas in atone- 
ment. His concern is with the creative moments in the history of all 
religion, and the question is whether such moments are more akin to 
one another than the intervening stages of decay or disintegration, 
and are distinguished by more primitive, more fundamental features.* 

It would seem that every new and significant unity typically carries 
with it the consciousness that an earlier unity had been broken and 
repaired, or that the earlier unity has been developed further, or that 
there has been a realization of what was already potential. Nor is this 
strange, for in mystical and related experiences there is a persistent 
sense of ultimate unity or oneness which men have been unable to 
rationalize. Mysticism, with its experiences of a oneness with some- 
thing pervasive lying beneath all life and thought, crude rites of social 
unity and oneness, and the ancient and primitive ideas of the inter- 
penetration of man and nature—these reflect a sense of unity, com- 
munion, and undifferentiation which ordered thought tends to replace 

1 That is to say, if we assume the recurring series /4m1n1, ?m?n*, etc., does 72 
resemble J! more closely than m1 orn? See p. 499 and n. 


KINSHIP IS A PRIORI 667 


by differentiation, co-ordination, correlation, and the systematization 
of society and of knowledge. All such experiences, which naturally 
are not confined to any one age or land, are of primary significance ; 
they are by no means necessarily “‘ religious ” in any objective sense of 
the term (p. 554). The experiences typically produce or force an 
adjustment of one’s thought, and must be regarded as logically more 
primary than the developments they initiate. They are subjectively 
far more intense than the systematization of life and thought which 
follow. But their content will be determined by the stage which had 
previously been reached, and the changes which ensue affect conditions 
which were already in existence. 

It is through these primary experiences that things are “‘ holy”’ 
or “ sacred”’ before they become “ profane”; and it is simpler to 
say that the process of “‘ sanctifying”’ brings out what was already 
potentially there, than to suppose that there is the absolute addition of 
a new quality; even as the conviction that something has been sanctified 
or divinized involves a qualitative change in the mind, and not the mere 
addition of anew idea. Similarly, a genuine conviction of the physical 
kinship of men and gods (as brothers or fathers) cannot be understood 
except as the outcome of genuine psychical experiences of unity which 
have been shaped by social conditions and by ideas concerning kins- 
men (or the terms to denote kinsmen) which already tay at hand. 
So, in the light of universal mystical and related experiences, it is 
possible to understand something of the vicissitudes in the conceptions 
of unity, order, truth, righteousness, and man’s place in nature, and 
to recognize how naturally it would happen that practical social needs 
would control their development. 

In so far as the fundamental idea of righteousness involves some 
new unity and the confirmation or extension of group-systems, the 
work of Moses and Mohammed illustrates how unity has been achieved 
by men who wield divine authority and are obeyed by jealous and 
conflicting tribes (p. 70; cf. Lectures, 617). Unity is effected by a god 
who becomes the god of a confederation (Yahweh, p. 319 n.), or who 
receives the veneration of scattered tribes (Orotal and Alilat, p. 316). 
The great ethical gods Varuna and Mitra, who are mentioned in certain 
old Hittite treaties, were essentially covenant gods (CAH. ii. 400); 
and the god of the border-city of Kadesh-Barnea, a meeting-place 
of different clans, was probably a covenant-god like the covenant- 
Baal of Shechem.1 Such gods are primarily not narrowly tribal or 
national, but are more closely associated with the individuals who are 

1 Appropriately enough, the Phoenician gods Suduk (Righteousness) and Misor 


(Uprightness) are said to have discovered salt, the importance of which in covenant 
ceremonies is well known (p. 270, Num. xviii. 19; Burney, Judges, 42). 


668 INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS 


responsible for the alliance... The gods that unite are behind or over 
the gods peculiar to the groups involved ; and the relations between 
local gods and the god(s) recognized by all the groups alike have always 
constituted a very delicate problem (see CAH. iii. 433 sq.). These 
higher gods seem to be less intimately a part of the unifying cere- 
monies and doctrines which persist after they themselves pass away. 
Varuna gives place to the more national Indra, and Yahweh found a 
serious rival in Baal, but was saved by the prophets; Shamash, too, 
is not a national god in the sense that Marduk or Asshur are. The 
god of the dominant group tends to conquer the god of a system of 
groups. W.R. 8. observes that when tribes were united in worship- 
ping the same god, each retained its religious cult: “‘ the circle of 
worship was still the kin, though the deity worshipped was not of the 
kin”? (p. 48), and ‘‘ they worshipped side by side, but not together” 
(p. 276). Even in Central Australia, the great gods belong to the larger 
systems rather than to the constituent groups (cf. p. 529). 

It is obvious that to the acuteness and initiation of individuals 
must be due so remarkable a co-operative system as that in Australia 
(p. 586). Even among savages, the religion of the individual is a very 
genuine experience (Malinowski, ed. Needham, 54). Hence it is 
necessary to emphasize the contrast between men of initiative and of 
marked personality and their personal religion—whatever it was— 
and the several totem-clans who perform their own totem ceremonies 
for the mutual advantage of the whole body. The totem-clan (that is, 
the clan and the animal or plant totem), with its practical “‘ magical” 
or “‘ magico-religious ’? ceremonies, stands on quite another footing 
from the god(s) found in the tribe or tribal area, however important 
these may be for the tribe as a whole. But the clan or local cult 
possessed the machinery for more extensive cults. The clan-cere- 
monies were eminently practical and reinforced the clan-unity; the 
collective ceremonies (e.g. initiation) strengthen the tribal feeling. 
Each clan formed a sort of mystical unity—which tended to break up 
whenever improved economic conditions made its ceremonies less 
vital—and totemism may fairly be described as a practical and 
‘immanent ”’ system in contrast to the more “ transcendent ”’ beings 
who are associated with the whole tribe and the leaders. The totem 
and clan are of the same essence ; and the totem (species), which is on a 
more equal footing with the clan, is indubitably more significant for 
the specific functions of the clan than the Supreme Being or Beings 
common to all the clans. The antithesis is typical: a group-god— 
tribal or national—tends to stand in an almost immanent relationship 


1 Cf. “‘ thy God ” in the appeal to Samuel, 1 Sam. xii. 19, and the words addressed 
to David, 1 Chron. xii. 18. 


a ee ee 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC RELIGION 669 


to the group. Even in Israel the national Yahweh, the god of the 
ancestors, and the deliverer of his own people, on the one side, and on 
the other the more universal God of all the earth, represent inevitable 
conflicting tendencies between the exclusive god of a group and the god 
of two or more groups who are aware that they are not one (p. 268). 
It is quite intelligible, therefore, that if the national god is to become 
universal the machinery of the national cult should be employed, and 
accordingly a universal Yahweh has his seat and his special priesthood 
at Jerusalem (cf. CAH. vi. 189). 

There tends to be a correspondence between the nature of the god 
of the group and that of the group with its peculiar interests, tempera- 
ment, history, economic conditions, etc. On the other hand, when 
groups are combined the god’s nature must be one capable of uniting 
different groups; it must go beneath and behind the conditions 
which sever individuals and groups, and appeal to that which they share 
collectively and in common (t.e. ideas of right, etc.). When the god 
is a sky- or sun-god it is the more fitted to be universal; and a sun- 
god was especially appropriate as the symbol of regularity and order; 
purity and truth, and of hostility to darkness and evil. The con- 
sciousness of norm, order, right, etc., is a priori, like the experience of 
unity and oneness: neither is of abstract truths but of concrete par- 
ticulars. Speculation concerning origins is futile; but whereas analysis 
takes us back to the group-atom, which nowhere exists alone (p. 507) 
and we are tempted to build up conceptions of society from the smallest 
units, in actual history we encounter areas, peoples, tribes, or systems 
of units—systems which in course of time give place to other systems. 
Now since the systematizing efforts whereby these new combinations 
or systems arise must be ascribed to individuals, men of personality, 
it seems a natural assumption that their religion would be anthropo- 
morphic rather than theriomorphic, and that the ideas of order, 
righteousness, etc., would be of an ethical character. 

Personal religion, in the shape of Personal Totems and Guardian 
Spirits (see Frazer, J'ot. Hx. s.vv.), is theriomorphic, but these are on 
the way to become personal gods of an increasingly anthropomorphic 
character. At higher stages the individual religion of the Pharaoh, 
impressive as it so often is, does not exclude striking animal symbolism, 
which, however, is not of an ethical stamp (p. 533). Further, against 
the assumption that animal gods could hardly serve to unite groups, 
could be set the distribution of certain totem-species—which, however, 
would unite only the scattered members of the particular totem-group ; 
or the extension, e.g., of the Apis-bull of Memphis—though here, again, 
ethical ideas are missing. On the one hand, the ritual for a system 
of groups tends to be based upon one already in use among one or more 


670 SACRIFICE OF TOTEM-KIN 


single groups.t On the other, the eminence of the more conspicuous 
individuals could naturally lead to their being venerated, to the rise 
of ancestor-cults, and to anthropomorphic conceptions of Supreme 
Beings (p. 547). That is to say, the ethical ideas and ideals come 
primarily only through men. 

Further, on the more exceptional and impressive occasions of 
some new union, when a sacrifice was required, the human victim 
might seem far more significant and valuable than an animal (cf. 
p- 361). An animal surrogate is not to be expected, though animals 
come to be the recognized sacrificial victims instead of man. But 
primarily, at least, the sacrificial animal must possess an inherent 
value of its own. In like manner, a“ sacred ”’ victim is to be expected 
rather than one that has been consecrated ad hoc (cf. p. 572); and as 
blood was the most elemental vehicle of life, the blood of one of the 
kin would primarily carry a profounder meaning than the blood of the 
victim which had ceremonially been made one of the kin. Here 
Central Australian totemism is extraordinarily suggestive, because (1) 
the clan and the totem are of the same kin and substance; (2) the 
clan-ceremonies are curiously practical and “‘ magico-religious,”’ 
whereas the tribal system, composed of a number of mutually co- 
operating clans, owes its existence to the genius of individuals, and is 
profoundly interesting from a higher social and ethical point of view. 
In other words, while the cults are totemic—and the details have 
parallels and analogies on higher (anthropomorphic) levels—the 
creative factors are due to individuals. The environment always 
moves more slowly than the individual, and the difference between the 
gradual development of an environment and the growth of ideas among 
individuals is so invariable as to be anticipated at all ages and at all 
stages of human history. For these reasons both W. R. S. and his most 
convinced opponents are right if it be recognized that social-religious 
advance has been from the lowest forms, of which modern Central 
Australian totemism affords only one example, but advances are due 
to individuals whose private (religious) experience, even on the most 
rudimentary levels, was other than that of the group-system. 

How this bears upon ideas of Right(eousness) and Wrong (sin, etc.) 
and Atonement (see pp. 654, 658) can now be seen. The fundamental 
ideas of man’s control over nature range from (1) the most specialist, 
as in the totem ceremonies for the control or the multiplication of the 
special animal or plant totem, which is of the same substance as the 


1 See especially Durkheim, 384 sqg., where the ‘‘ multiplication ” ceremonies are 
employed, though not for their primary purpose, when the novices are being initiated. 
A single rite may serve many ends, and different rites may be used to produce the 
same effect and can replace one another (2b. 386). 


ATONEMENT AND RIGHTEOUSNESS 671 


members of the clan, to (2) the most general and vague—though, as a 
matter of fact, the priestly kings themselves are more especially con- 
trollers of the weather. But in all the beliefs and practices wherein 
men utilize supernatural power there are conditions and restrictions : 
Mana and Taboo are complementary, and success depends upon the 
appropriate conduct (p. 565). In the totem ceremonies the behaviour 
of the officiants, the solemnity with which the rites are performed, and 
the atmosphere throughout combine to point to a psychological state 
which can only be styled a literal at-one-ment. Broken taboos and 
wrong-doing would frustrate the rites, which are for the benefit of 
others ; and there are implicit ideas of unity, right conduct, sociable- 
ness, which were capable of being grasped in their concrete form and 
extended. ‘In the O.T.,” writes W. R. S., “the experience of 
forgiveness is no mere subjective feeling ; it rests on facts”? (OTJC. 
441). Primitive peoples have no explicit conceptions of Righteousness, 
Sin, and Atonement in any modern sense of the words. Their various 
social ceremonies meant (a) tribal unity and (b) the peculiar unity of 
each clan with some one department of nature ; and although modern 
Central Australian totemism cannot be supposed to represent actual 
primitive prehistoric religion, it enables us to understand how an 
extraordinarily rudimentary social-religious system may contain 
at least the germs of the great ideas which in the history of thought 
have been made explicit, differentiated, and developed. 

P. 432. Tor Limprna Dance.—Circumambulation is common, but 
sometimes a limping, hopping, or halting gait characterizes sacred or 
ceremonial dances ; see Hncy. Brit. vii. 795c (India), Hitrem, 479 (Ice- 
land), Hélscher, Die Profeten, 132, and Oesterley, The Sacred Dance, 
117 sq., citing Heliodorus, Aeth. iv. 16 sq. (the limping and leaping of 
Tyrian seafarers in the worship of Heracles of Tyre). For Gunkel’s 
conjecture that the name Manasseh means “ [the god] who causes to 
limp,” see H. W. Hogg, H.Bi. col. 2921. The Arabic takhallu) denotes 
walking in a loose manner as though disjointed ; it is supposed to be the 
effect of contact with the jinn (Hogg, 7b.). Here may be compared the 
place-name Beth-Hoglah, Jerome’s locus gyri, which has been connected 
with Ar. hajala, “‘ hobble or hop” (#.Bi. col. 557) ; it was perhaps the 
scene of a limping dance. Some hopping or limping dance seems to 
accompany the modern Syrian dirge ma@id (Jahnow, Heb. Leichenlied, 
75 n. 6, citing Wetzstein). Jacob’s limping, which is associated with 
a struggle with a supernatural being (and a victory, Hos. xii. 3 sq.), and 
with a “‘ pass-over,” may go back to some traditional limping cere- 
mony at the Jordan (Gunkel, Oesterley) ; though it is said that the 
injury to the sinew of the thigh-socket such as he sustained, is a common 
affection, and causes a man to walk on tiptoe (cf. 380 n. 1, above ; 


672 RITUAL LIMPING 


Skinner, Gen. 410 sq.).1 But the thigh is a seat of life and procreative 
power, and was sacred among the North American Choctaws for this 
reason (Frazer, GB. viii. 264 sqq., especially 266); and the limping 
rite thus seems to connect itself with circumcision, possibly as a 
puberty rite.2 See above, p. 610. 

When the Elema maskers, a secret society of New Guinea, “ hop 
about as is characteristic of gods,” * this comparison is presumably 
derived from earlier limping dances performed by men who were 
ceremonially representing or imitating the supernatural beings, and 
whose peculiar gait became fixed in tradition as that of the gods. In 
the annual death-dance at Pulu in the Torres Straits, masked per- 
formers imitated the gait and actions of their deceased kinsmen 
(Webster, 162); and among the Kayans of Central Borneo, before the 
rice is sown, masked men imitate the spirits in order to ensure a good 
harvest (GB. vii. 186). In a variety of ways men have gained their 
ideas of the gods from those who represented them or embodied them. 
On the stela with Hammurabi’s Code of Laws the Sun-god resembles 
the king, who in his turn is “‘ the Sun of the Land ”’ ;# and, alternately, 
the gods are thought of and depicted after the patterns of outstanding 
individuals, and the accepted teaching concerning the gods subse- 
quently provides the patterns for other men to follow. Accordingly, it 
is necessary to distinguish (1) the imitation of gods and spirits by men 
who adopt a certain toilet, wear a disguise, or indulge in certain 
characteristic actions such as a “‘ limping dance,” and (2) the traditions, 
which have become “ canonical,” concerning the appearance, dress, 
gait, and other characteristics and attributes of the gods. See further 
below, p. 674 sq. 

P. 434.—Mr. C. G. Montefiore, in his Hibbert Lectures (1892) on the 
Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient 
Hebrews (ed. of 1897, pp. 333 sq., 335 sq.), took exception to W. R. S.’s 
remarks here and also on p. 408 (as regards Lev. xvi. 30). Still, as he 
remarks, the institution of the yearly Day of Atonement “* was likely 
to lead, and did lead, to many fresh superstitions. By the letter of 
the law, it was seemingly implied that the guilt of all sins . . . would 

1 For the “ sacredness ” of this sinew Wellhausen (168 n.) refers to Kamil, 552, 13. 

2 N. Schmidt (JBL. xlv. 275 sq.) conjectures that the nasheh sinew was originally 
the pudic nerve, or rather the membrum virile itself. The Shiahs do not eat 
the hare because, like the camel, it has ‘‘ the sinew which shrank ” (The Near 
East, February 10, 1927, p. 145). 

3 Hutton-Webster, Primitive Secret Societies, 101 sq. (cf. 106 for a limping dance) ; 
S. A. Cook, Ridgeway Presentation Volume, 397 sg. On limping gods, cf. also Fries, 
MV AG. xv. 104. . 

4 Similarly, the god Khons of Thebes is represented as an Egyptian prince, 
possibly Haremheb (Gressmann, Vortrdge, Warburg, iii. 182). 


ATONEMENT, FASTING, DUES 673 


be wiped out and atoned for by the ceremony of the Atonement-day.”’ 
He objects also that nothing is said in the Mishnah about “‘ material 
prestation,” and argues that the atoning efficacy lay in the Day itself, 
and that there was a formal suspension of forgiveness between the act 
of repentance and the Day. Cf. also G. F. Moore, #.Bz. ‘‘ Sacrifice,”’ 
§ 51 sq., who refers to R. Judah the patriarch, who seems to have 
maintained that the Day of Atonement expiated sin without repentance, 
though this was an exception to the prevailing view. W.R.S. (p. 434 
1, 3) states that sacrificial rites lay the deity under a social obligation. 
It is true that the trend of orthodox Rabbinical Judaism was to insist 
upon the more ethical and spiritual conditions of atonement, but 
‘there are emphatic allusions to the Shechinah countenancing sin 
and dwelling in contact with it. . . . God dwells in Israel at all costs ”’ 
(Abelson, Immanence of God in Rabb. Lit. 138). Gray (Sacrifice, 320) 
observes that the institution of the Day of Atonement tended to foster 
the growth of a very mechanical and unethical view of sin. He con- 
cludes: “* Every ritual of expiation, every symbol of forgiveness, every 
theory of atonement, is liable to abuse and to foster an unethical and 
unspiritual conception of God’s attitude to sin, and it would not be 
difficult . . . to parallel from other religions such abuses as we have 
observed of the Jewish Day of Atonement, and also of such protests in 
favour of a more worthy one.” : 

P. 434. Fastina BrrorE A SACRED MEAL.—See GB. viil. 73, 75, 
76 sq., 83, ix. 291 sq. The practice served to prepare the body for mys- 
tical experiences. It was a custom among the Jews of Philo’s time 
to fast during the day or to abstain from food and drink before the 
Paschal meal, though scarcely for the reason given by some Rabbis— 
to increase the appetite (so Pesakh. 99a; Gray, 376). The early Syrian 
Christians fasted before receiving the ‘‘ Holy Mysteries ’’ (Budge, Book 
of Governors, ii. 666), and it was a practice at the Mysteries (cf. S. Angus, 
The Mystery-Religions and Christianity, 85). From the complaint in 
Isaiah lviii. 3, it would seem that fasting was supposed to ensure divine 
attention (cf. Jer. xiv. 12); and although “to afflict oneself” (‘innah 
néphesh) might have been mainly psychological, it comes to denote 
fasting ; see Cheyne, #.Bi. 386 n. 4; Benzinger, 1b. 1507 (§ 5). 

P. 435 n.—In the account of the sale of a priesthood in Babylonia 
the sacrificial priest receives the intestines, ribs, reins, stomach, etc. ; 
see further G. R. Driver, Centenary Supplement of the Journ. of the 
- Royal Asiat. Soc. 1924, Oct., 48. At the present day the kaiyam of 
the Palestinian shrine generally receives the skin and the sakaf, 1.e. 
extremities, head, abdominal organs (excluding the large omentum) 
and the madbah (the part of the throat where the knife has cut it) ; see 
Canaan, J POS. vi. 43. 


43 


674 SACRED DRESS 


P. 437. SacrepD Dress (cf. 451 sy.).—Garments frequently serve 
as an indication of ownership (p. 336 n. 1) or of a claim (cf. Ezek. 
xvi. 8; Ruth iii. 9),' as a token of protection, or as a covenant mark 
(Landberg, Arab. v. 175 sq.); in the period of the First Babylonian 
Dynasty the impression of the fringed border of a man’s mantle 
served instead of a seal or a signature (Thureau-Dangin, Ritwels Accad: 
57 n., 95). At the New Year’s Festival in the cities of Bayblonia the 
king would send his garments to represent himself (Langdon, Epic 
of Creation, 29 n.). The clothes of “sacred”? men naturally have 
a special virtue (e.g. Mohammed’s; Wellhausen, 196). Special and, in 
particular, ‘‘ clean” garments are commonly necessary on sacred 
occasions, and (usually dark red and purple) were worn in Babylonia 
both by the priests and laymen (Lagrange, 239 sqg.; Morgenstern, 
145 sq.). But such garments, besides being ritually “ clean,” were 
sometimes in some way connected with the gods who were being 
worshipped. A priest is said to wear the clothes of the city of Hridu 
(Delitzsch, Handwérterbuch, 371b), and in general “‘ the exorcising 
priests donned special garments—often in imitation of the god in whose 
name they acted ’’ (Jastrow, Rel. Bel. 316). Centuries later, at Harran, 
the worshipper who approached the various planetary gods wore a dress 
appropriate to the god.? Presumably it was necessary to resemble 
—externally, at least—the god to whom one was appealing (it was 
a sort of identification or communion), and along these lines may 
be explained the masks and other coverings of the worshippers of the 
bull-deity in Asia Minor and elsewhere (A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 490 sq.). 
In Egypt, the man who presided over the rite of mummification is called 
‘* Anubis the embalmer,” and sometimes seems to have worn a jackal 
mask. Butin general, masks are not necessarily to imitate gods, they 
may also serve, like veils, to hide the face from the vulgar gaze or from 
gazing upon the sacred. Cf. Exod. xxxiv. 33 sqq. 

Here may be mentioned the use of skins (see p. 474). Theskin of an 
animal may be preserved as a token of, or as actually containing some 
vital part of the animal (GB. viii. 173 sq.). Skins of sacrificial victims 
are preserved as amulets, or they are used in ceremonies of rebirth 
(in Kikuyu); e.g. a man wrapped in a skin or otherwise identified with 

1 See Wellhausen, Archiv f. Rel. 1904, p. 40 sq.; Goldziher, Abhand. i. 46 sq. 

2 De Goeje, Leiden Oriental Congress, 1883, ii. 341); cf. the special dress worn 
when consulting oracles of Trophonius (Paus. ix. 39) and Delphi (Livy, xxiii. 11). 

3 Blackman, Proc. of Soc. Bibl. Arch. xl. 66. On masks, see Andrew Lang, Myth, 
Ritual, etc. (1899), ii. 284; Crawley, Mystic Rose, 114 sq., 330; Hoffman and 
Gressmann, ZATW. 1922, pp. 78 sqq., 94 sq. (on the teraphim, see further Sellin, 
Alttest. Prophetismus, 203 sq.). On Gregentius, p. 438 n. 2 above, Stiibe (note 760) 
adds references to Migne, Patr. Gr. Lxxxvi. i. 599, and ZDMG. xxxv. 1 sqq., 
693 sqq. 


IMITATION AND IDENTIFICATION 675 


an animal undergoes symbolically a radical change in his status.1 Such 
animals are not necessarily sacred, although, where this is the case, 
as in sleeping on a ram-skin to obtain a revelation (Paus. i. 34, 5), 
ideas of communion or identity are involved. 

On some Babylonian representations of Marduk and Adad, the robes 
of the gods are adorned with astral symbols, which, it would seem, are 
intended to associate them with their celestial realm.? The cosmic 
interpretation of the dress of the Jewish high priest in Josephus (Ant. 
iii. 7. 1), in spite of its lateness, is explicable only if it points back to 
antique conceptions of the relation between the gods in their heavenly 
abodes and their human representatives on earth, which persisted (in 
varying forms) down to a very late period. On this, see Gray, Sacrifice, 
143 sqq. (on the sacrificial service in heaven), and the rather speculative 
treatment by A. Jeremias in his Handbuch (passim). 

P. 438. ImrraTion AND IDENTIFICATION.—The desire to imitate 
or otherwise resemble a sacred being ranges from the loftiest spiritual 
injunction to imitate the perfection of a Heavenly Father (Matt. v. 48), 
or to be “ holy”’ as Yahweh was holy (Lev. xix. 2), to the crudest efforts 
to imitate externally the animal or other sacred object with whom men 
felt themselves to be most intimately connected. Thus ‘‘ Condor 
clans in Peru who believed themselves descended from the condor, 
adorned themselves with the feathers of the bird’ (Frazer, Tot. Hx. 
i. 26). Among the Thompson Indians of North America, the boy who 
received a guardian spirit would paint his face with designs symbolic 
of this spirit (iii. 414). Among the Australian Arunta the newly 
initiated youth, after being told his secret name (which may be that 
of one of the famous departed, of whom he is the reincarnation), is 
painted on face and body with the device of his totem (i. 196). <A 
new-born babe of the Deer clan of the Omaha Indians will be marked 
with red spots down the neck to indicate that it is a deer; and when 
one of the Buffalo clan dies he is wrapped in a buffalo robe before rejoin- 
ing his “‘ ancestors”’ (iii. 103 sq.; cf. the Tlingit practices, 2b. 269 sq., 
and those of the Haidas, 289). In all such rites whereby the sacred 
being is imitated or an identity externally effected, the visible action 
has, primarily at least, a genuine psychological value. It manifests 
a communion with the sacred being (cf. Durkheim, 357 sq.), however 
conventional or mechanical this relationship may subsequently become. 


1 On skins in ritual, see Frazer, FOT. ii. 6 sqq.; Eitrem, 386 sqq. (see 7b. 401 sq., 
482 sq., on clothes in ritual). 

2 Cf. A. Jeremias, Old Test. i. 106, fig. 33 (cf. ii. 190 n.), and Handbuch d, Alt- 
orient. Geisteskultur, 42, fig. 25; Gressmann, Altorient. Bilder z. A.T.?, figs. 314, 
326 (with description, pp. 90,93). Sellin, in the Véldeke-Festschrift, 712, conjectures 
that the priestly shining dress in Babylonia reflects the shining majesty of the god 
(el Fs, ciy, 1 sq.). 


676 IMITATION IS PRACTICAL 


It represents the constantly recurrent stage where “spiritual”’ 
ideas are grasped only in a concrete and visible form; and it 
illustrates the characteristic difference between (a) the emphasis upon 
the outward act, as engendering, maintaining, and revealing a par- 
ticular inward state, and (b) that upon the condition of mind of which 
the outward act is, at its highest, the natural fruit (cf. A. B. David- 
son on Ezek. xviii. 9 [Camb. Bible). But however mystical 
the rites of imitation may be, they typically serve an essentially 
practical purpose. In becoming like the god one acquired his powers 
and gained possession of his ability to control either things or else 
the processes which he operated. The most striking cases of imitation 
are those in the Central Australian ceremonies, where certain totem- 
clans imitate in one way or another the totem in order to make it more 
abundant (as food) or otherwise control it. The imitation sets in 
operation, as it were, a “‘ mystic potency” (cf. I. King, 152 sqq.). 
However mystical imitative rites may seem, the religion of primitive 
peoples is predominantly practical; and the rites which seem to be 
crudely magical are better described as ‘‘ magico-religious.”” For 
the details, see Frazer, GB. i. 85 sqq., Tot. Hx. i. 105 sqq., 184 sqq.; 
Durkheim, 351 sgqg. See above on “‘ limping,”’ p. 672, and on imitation 
by means of dress, p. 674; also ERE. ‘ Religion,” § 19. 

P. 439 sq. THE MATERIAL AND THE SPIRITUAL.—In his final para- 
graph, summing up the whole book, W. R. S. indicates the supreme 
problem of religion: (1) the real difference between primitive and 
advanced religions, and (2) the factors of the progressive development 
of religion. Everywhere there is an invariable tendency for ideas to 
pass into movements, and attention to any movement readily evokes 
the tendency to copy it. All primitive types of thought are at the 
perceptual rather than the conceptual stage: ideas are “ bound,” 
and cannot be grasped save in some physical, material, or concrete 
embodiment. Some material object or action, more or less appro- 
priate to the occasion, is commonly desired in order to give reality to 
what at higher stages is recognized as essentially mental ; and purely 
psychological processes must be helped out by concrete rites.1_ Primi- 
tive man, observes Kreglinger, has no internal life. “ Il est réaliste, 
découvre des réalistés objectives 14 méme ou il n’apergoit en fait que 
les images subjectives nées dans sa propre pensée: il est matérialiste, 
tous les concepts se matérialisent dans sa pensée, sans d’ailleurs, cela 


1 Cf. Naaman in 2 Kings v.10 sgg. Canaan (JPOS. vi. 38 n. 4) cites a curious 
case where a mother cures her son of a very bad fright by acting as though he were 
dead; his alarm and anxiety dispel his fright, but he must eat of a hen which she 
has been boiling, and the hen is a black or white one according as the man had been 
frightened in the night-time or the day. See above, pp. 84 sqq. 


Se ee ee ee = 


MATERIAL AND: SPIRITUAL 677 


va de soi, que cette matérialisation soit vrai consciente.” 1 Primitive 
religion, accordingly, is intensely practical, and centres on human life 
and on real human interests (above, pp. 16 sqq.; cf. Lectures, 412). 

The differences between the practical social-religious cults of 
rudimentary peoples and the more conceptual and abstract stages of 
thought at the higher levels constitute a common source of mis- 
understanding, and raise important questions. Misled by the con- 
creteness of primitive religion, it is easy to overlook the ideas that lie 
behind or are implicit in primitive rites. On the other hand, since 
ideas of salvation, redemption, etc., would, as W. R. S. remarks, be 
primarily expressed in some concrete shape, it is often difficult in 
particular cases, e.g. in dealing with the O.T., to determine whether 
such ideas were reinforced by or expressed in concrete form, or had 
already become purely spiritual.? Ideas of spiritual imitation of a god 
have their more rudimentary physical counterpart (p. 675); and to 
spiritual rebirth or regeneration correspond realistic rites of rebirth 
(p. 649). Primarily, at least, such rites must have been of psycho- 
logical value ; ideas of the kinship and marriage of gods and man, and 
other realistic modes of thought, must have been a genuine expression 
of the intimate relationship which men felt to subsist between their 
supernatural beings and themselves. 

Now primitive men not only fail to recognize any essential differ- 
ence between human and animal life, but can even aver a substantial 
identity between themselves and their totem (Frazer, Jot. Ex. i. 119 ; 
cf. above, 88 sqg.). The Kangaroo man points to a photograph of him- 
self and says, ‘‘ That one is just the same as me; soisakangaroo.”’ The 
explanation of this lies in the meaning his totem has for him ;* and 
similarly, on a considerably higher level of civilization, when a Pharaoh, 
like Ikhnaton, is ‘‘ son ”’ of the solar disk Aton, it is obvious that the 
solar body is the embodiment of his god as truly as an image or other 
terrestrial object can be to its worshippers. So long as physical con- 

1 Btudes sur Vorigine et le développement de la vie religieuse (Brussels, 1919), 
i. 160 sgg. Of course this type of thought occurs everywhere. In Rome, ‘“‘ Faunus 
is the wood and Vulturnus is the river, the name of the seed is Ceres.” ‘“ Dryads 
and Hamadryads are trees,’’ and ‘“‘ whereas Naiads are sources, nixies and hags, 
and tree-spirits and brownies, are souls that are only bound to sources, trees, and 
houses, from which they long to be released ” (Spengler, The Decline of the West, 
i. 403). 

x 2 e.g., aS concerns ideas of the safety of a man’s “‘ soul,” see Cook in People 
and the Book (ed. Peake, 45 sqq.); cf. H. W. Robinson, 1b. 353 sqqg., and for the 
connexion between “trust” (b-t-h) and prostration or throwing oneself upon 
another, see G. Driver, 1b. 118, and cf. JQR. 1902, April, 447. See above, p. 635. 

3 Cf. Durkheim (188, 206): totemism is the religion, not of such and such 
animals, men, or images, but of the power foundin them, though not to be con- 
founded with them. 


678 PRIMITIVE REALISM 


crete rites and modes of thought have a meaning which we can only 
describe as psychical or spiritual, the social and ethical value of much 
that seems purely ritual or material is psychologically explicable. In 
point of fact, the extent to which the “ spiritual’ lurks in seemingly 
crude and physical forms is astonishing. Ideas of “ supernatural ” 
birth, of the “ spirits’ or “‘ souls’ even of inanimate objects, or the 
ability of ‘‘ spirits” to eat the “‘ spirit’ part of food, taken with the 
preponderance of religious or magical rites and practices in the life of 
primitive men, have given the impression that they must have passed 
all their time more or less in a mystical state. It is, however, truer to 
say that at the lower undifferentiated stages religious and related ideas 
permeated the greater part of life, and that through the very scanti- 
ness of positive knowledge the “‘ supersensuous”’ was more immediate. 
Indeed, the reality of what we should call the spiritual or the super- 
senuous was such that even at higher stages of development, spirits 
and souls have concrete form, and spirit and matter instead of being 
antithetical are different qualities or modes of the same substance, being 
more refined or more coarse as the case may be. Theimmediate reality 
of the spiritual and psychical is the characteristic feature of early 
thought; the explicit distinction of the psychical and spiritual from 
the physical and material marks the great advance. 

‘““ The early Hebrews did not think about Yahweh, they believed 
in him and expressed the reality of his sovereignty in the great things 
which he did for his people”’ (Prophets, 42). The more detached 
objective and critical attitudes are secondary. It is then that names 
of things lose their concreteness and a distinction can be drawn between 
a name or a word and what it stands for, and meanings can be severed 
from the ways in which they are expressed. Differentiation takes 
place. In Lectures, 224 sq., W. R. 8S. characteristically illustrates this 
in the ‘‘growth of the religious consciousness” at the Reformation. 
Rites like that which accompanies the prayer to Ishtar (p. 646 n. 3), or 
the ceremonial cited above (p. 676), have no real justification for their 
existence ; none the less it often proves difficult to sever rites from 
that with which they have no genetic connexion whatever. Similarly, 
a god will not be deemed to exist apart from the sacred object in which 
he is embodied, even as at the stage of conceptual thought ideas of 
a Supreme Being are treated in a quasi-physical way. And when 
the connexion between idea and ritual is of the closest, as in rites of 
purification, imitation, and rebirth, both the readiness with which 
the forms come to obscure the spiritual element which had given them 
their primary value, and the difficulty of modifying them, can be easily 
understood. Again, it often happens that the spiritual value of a rite 
is so slight that, properly speaking, it requires reinforcement which, 


““ MAGICO-RELIGIOUS ’> ELEMENTS 679 


however, is not provided for by any other rite ; or the rite has implica- 
tions which, if developed—and there is a tendency to develop them— 
would impede ethical or intellectual progress. Upon the form in 
which an idea is clothed, or on the rite with which it is fused, will 
depend the advance of thought. 

The spiritual idea that can be found in some physical dress, e.g. 
the imitation of a god, is neither in isolation nor is it solely spiritual. 
Primarily, it has some real connexion with its environment. For this 
and other reasons it is proper to distinguish, where possible, between 
(a) the magico-religious, which has an evident value, even though it be 
interwoven with ideas of nature and the control of nature which are no 
longer held, and (6) the purely magical, wherein individuals profess to 
control nature in their own right, or there are amulets and other ob- 
jects to which is ascribed an efficacy which is in no way inherent in 
them. The difference turns upon their psychological and social value. 
If, for example, the idea of scapegoats arose merely from a confusion 
between (1) the possibility of transferring actual physical burdens and 
(2) the supposition that bodily and mental ailments could be as readily 
shifted (see Frazer, GB. ix. Preface), the rise and persistence of the rites 
would be psychologically inexplicable. Hence, although numerous 
examples of a purely magical order could undoubtedly be cited, the rites 
must be regarded—when a long view is taken—as primarily ‘‘ magico- 
religious.” 2 Moreover, it is misleading to stamp religion at the 
physical stage as necessarily unethical. Early ideas of the Sacred 
and Holy had not that ethical or moral value which the Hebrew 
prophets gave them; they were pre-ethical. They did not neces- 
sarily exclude an ethical meaning, but they were undifferentiated, 
being interwoven with what was non- and anti-ethical. And as the 
stress was not laid upon their ethical significance, they not only 
included but even emphasized (as in the Kedéshdth) what proved to 
be immoral and anti-social.® 


1G, F. Moore (Hist. of Religions, i. 585), referring to the Roman deities Con- 
cordia, Spes, Pietas, etc., observes that modern authors often regard these as the 
deification of abstractions and a mark of advanced religious development ; but 
“it is only the modern who conceives them as abstract : the power which works 
harmony among citizens is for the antique apprehension no more abstract than 
the power that works the germination of grain in the earth.” One sees how the 
treatment of ideas of Concord, Wisdom, etc., were hampered by their embodiment. 
The Semitic divine abstractions, in South Arabia, etc., are merely appellatives : 
Hukm is not Wisdom, but “ the wise one ” (Nielsen, Handbuch, i. 195 sq.). 

2 Incidentally, it should be noticed that the desire to relate primitive psychology 
to that of more advanced peoples is itself significant for the science and theory of 
religion ; cf. ERE. *‘ Religion,” § 12. 

3 Cf. p.553. In the same way, ideas of ‘‘ religion” can be at a pre-ethical stage 


680 TRANSMUTATION OF IDEAS 


Differentiation and the development of some particular aspect 
are the most characteristic features in the history of religious thought, 
and a distinction has to be drawn between legitimate development, 
when a spiritual meaning is found in some rite, etc., and the tendencies 
to find some deeper meaning for which there is no justification—the 
notorious abuse of the allegorical method of interpretation. Spiritual 
development does not lie only in making explicit what was formerly 
implicit, but in processes of transmutation. In a singularly forcible 
passage, W. R. 8. explains the spiritual ideas of Yahweh as a reaction 
against the passion of Semitic heathenism (Lectures, p. 425). Error 
and aberration will force a recognition of elemental ideas which need 
reshaping, even as gross evil will compel the recognition of the prin- 
ciples which it violates. Excesses in religion (phallicism, licentious 
cults, human sacrifice), and all else that is socially destructive, are to 
be regarded on this account, not as primary phenomena, but as late 
decadent tendencies. But it is often possible amid certain gross, 
irrational, and ‘‘ superstitious ”’ beliefs and practices to recover some- 
thing germinal which needs transmuting, even as, at the conceptual 
level, an extreme theory, theology, or philosophy may contain ele- 
ments which in another form are of permanent value." 

It is instructive to inquire why new spiritual teaching, such as that 
of the prophets, is ultimately assimilated. It may be found that it 
has developed and made explicit what was already implicit, or it has 
fitted in with current belief, or it has transmuted or reshaped it. But 
the spiritual ideas of great figures tend to be, like themselves, isolated 
and apart from practical life and thought. They need adjustment and 
systematization. There is always the danger that spiritual ideas will 
become merely verbal. Spiritual teaching is preserved by being 
systematized in tangible or concrete form, in individual or social life, 
in a doctrinal or other system. The teaching of the prophets became 
embodied in post-exilic Judaism, and “* without those hard and ossified 
forms the preservation of its essential elements would have proved 
impossible.” The example is of the deepest interest as showing that 
the stage when religion has become “ spiritual” (as in the individual- 
istic prophets) is never the final stage. Many interesting points at 
once arise out of the relationship between the pre-spiritual and later 
stages. It may be asked, e.g., whether the “ priestly” account of 
the circumcision rite.is recognizably post-prophetic, and whether the 
national history of Israel in its present form represents pre- prophetic or 


when attention is directed to the intense subjective meaning that it has for the 
individual rather than upon its more objective aspects. 

1 Cf. Cook, Study of Religions, 211 sqq. 

2 Cf. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 497 sq., cited in Ency. Brit. xv. 390d. 


** SPIRITUAL ”’ RELIGION 681 


post-prophetic teaching. Moreover, false contrasts are frequently 
made. The Babylonian psalms, in spite of their many admirable 
features, seem unspiritual because of their material rewards or the 
absence of higher feelings of love for god or fellow-men. But a living 
religion is practical and apt to be material, notably that of Israel. 
The contrast is as misleading as that between the practical life and 
religion of Israelites and the height of idealism in the N.T.—as distinct 
from the troubled history of a worldly Christendom. 

Religious experience must be made articulate, and therefore needs 
a theology—as W. R. S. was insisting in his earlier work (Lectures, cf. 
323 et passim). So, too, spiritual religion must be in a system which 
is in a certain harmony with ordinary life and knowledge. In the 
development of religion the spiritual part, implicit or explicit, has 
invariably proved the most essential—conversely, that which has been 
developed is that which was “spiritual”; and at the higher stages it 
must be embodied in order to preserve it, but it must not be suffocated. 
The “ congenital defect inherent in every attempt to embody spiritual 
truth in material forms” (p. 440) is most obvious in rudimentary 
religion or in the priestly ritual of a post-exilic Judaism. But when 
W. R. S.—in the earlier part of his career, at least—reiterates his dis- 
satisfaction with the theology of the day, and looks for a revival of the 
old Reformation spirit and principles, he is implying that even an 
explicitly theological system can lose its old spiritual power (see the 
Introduction). The transition from the physical or material stage 
through some spiritual movement to a new systematization at the 
conceptual level is not all; and “ spiritual”’ religion is not merely 
that which by reason of its terminology stands conspicuously opposed 
to material or ritual forms. 

Gray (Sacrifice, 43 sq., 52 sqq.) contrasts the spiritual demand of the 
prophets that men should be like God, with primitive communion rites 
and the offering of gifts. The root idea of both of the latter belongs, 
he asserts, to a ‘‘ grossly material view of religion and of man’s rela- 
tion to God ”’ (1b. 54). This is forcibly put. There are many practices 
whereby a man is taken out of himself into a “‘ supersensuous”’ realm, 
and the occasions will be felt to be “‘ sacred’; but a distinction may 
well be drawn between those like the use of intoxicating drinks 
(p. 575; cf. also p. 612 sq.), and those whose demoralizing effects are less 
patent, notably material gifts (cf. p. 639). Again, even if man’s gift 
of his own will to God be completely spiritual (Gray), must not this 
surrender be translated into action? And if so, the question will 
arise, When is a man doing or not doing the will of his god? If todo 
God’s will is spiritual religion, it would seem that a distinction should 
be made between (a) the occasions when the individual is conscious of 


682 THE WILL OF THE GOD 


alternatives, one of which is definitely “‘ higher,” and may be regarded 
as in accordance with, or in submission to, a Divine Will; and (6) 
all those where he is at least not consciously acting contrary to his 
highest ideals. There are other cases which need not be considered ; 
and it seems evident that in the latter (b) he is, consciously at least, 
not opposing God’s will, though whether he is therefore doing it brings 
up questions which do not belong here. All that has to be said now 
is that one of the most characteristic features of primitive religion is 
not (1) “‘ my will,” the will of the all-powerful wonder-worker ; nor 
is it (2) “‘ thy will,” an explicit dependence upon and surrender to a 
higher power ; it may be called (3) “‘ our will.’ In the last case men 
are admittedly or virtually or implicitly co-operating with their gods.1 
They are a “‘ chosen people,” or “ representative ’’ individuals ; they 
are symbols or vehicles of the recognized god(s), and it is frequently 
taken as a matter of course that the gods do the will of their adherents. 
Or men perform ceremonies to procure that for which elsewhere they 
appeal directly to the gods; they act qua gods. This type readily 
develops, in one direction, into explicit subservience and quietism, 
and in the other, towards the crudest magical attitudes ; and for this 
reason it can be regarded as primary. ‘‘ Our will” is the typical 
religion of the narrow group-system consisting of gods and their 
worshippers; it is religion of an immanental and not transcendental 
character, and on this account is of the first importance for estimating 
the nature of “ spiritual ’’ religion. ; 

W. R. 8S. clearly recognized that his researches bore directly on 
‘* the great problem of the origins of the spiritual religion of the Bible” 
(p. 2). Communion or At-one-ment with a Divine Power, as he had 
previously insisted, was a moral, a personal thing; it is an invisible 
bond, not an outward sign (Lectures, 223, 275, 319). It is enough for 
us to recall the New Covenant to be written on a man’s heart, or the 
Divine Presence when two or three are gathered together in His Name 
—in the Talmud when men meet together to study the Torah the 
Shechinah is in their midst.27 Now amid the many forms in which 
experiences and convictions of communion, at-one-ment, or fellowship 
have expressed themselves, we can distinguish (1) the fundamental 
experience without which the evidence would be unintelligible, and 
(2) the various forms which we may attempt to evaluate and arrange 
in some order of development. The x which we trace in J, m, and n is 
the “‘ spiritual’ element; and ambiguity is caused when with 2, the 
psychological origin of the forms and their primitive expression, is 
confused 1, which, as the most rudimentary of forms, is regarded as the 

1See ERE. “ Religion,” § 19 (3). 
? Bab. Berachoth, 6a (Abelson, 145). 


a eS ee ee i ey ae 


a 


DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGION 683 


true origin. Moreover, even to say that 1 developed into m and m 
into n goes farther than to say that n can be traced back ultimately 
to I (cf. p. 541, top); and it is obvious that 1 can never represent actual 
prehistoric primitive data. So, as regards the theory of totem-origins, 
it is admittedly of extraordinary suggestiveness; it has drawn attention 
to the potentiality of some very rudimentary cults and to the per- 
sistence, recurrence, and constant reshaping of elements—of which the 
idea of communion is only one—which for this reason may be called 
“ spiritual.”” W. R. S.’s theory of the ‘“‘ totem-origin ” of sacrifice is 
true, therefore, in the sense that in totemism we find the most primitive 
types of belief and practice that we can well conceive, and that, as 
Durkheim clearly showed, it contains in rudimentary form some of 
the significant features which mark the higher religions. 

It has been said somewhere that the most ancient religion would 
be the purest, the most recent the truest: at all events it is an im- 
portant question whether primitive religion has any real value for or 
anything to contribute to modern knowledge. Has the “‘ vision”’ of 
early types of religion any meaning for mature thought which admits of 
being rationalized ? Now, when Christianity arose, it did not cover 
the same ground and have the same milieu as pre-Christian Judaism ; 
and the same can be said of post-exilic Judaism in its relation to the 
old religion of Israel. In religious as in other thought a new stage 
will often be more intensive, but on a narrower basis, more idealist, 
less catholic. In the history of religions and of sects progress in one 
direction seems often to be accompanied by impoverishment in others. 
The development is at the cost of earlier material which had some 
value. It may be that this material is no longer compatible with the 
new movement, its interests or its milieu; or it is unsuitable for its 
members, who, it may be, are at a much less mature stage of in- 
tellectual growth. There are conspicuous occasions where religion 
has severed itself from non-religious material which it has not even 
transmuted, and characteristic of primitive religion is much that is of 
peculiar interest if only because of the profound gulf between it and 
modern thought. 

The development of religion has been marked by the extension 
and differentiation of early ideas. What is true of a vital part of a 
system becomes true of every part, in both cases conditionally. What 
is true of the supreme representative individual applies—when allow- 
ance is made for differentiation of function—to all. We pass—in 
Egypt—from the eager hope that the great men must surely survive 
death to the belief that this may be true of all. The cosmic importance 
of the one or the few, by virtue of their relation to their god, gives way 
to the supreme value of every individual, and for the same reason. 


684 THE ‘‘ SPIRITUAL’ AS “ TRANSCENDENT ” 


Properly, everything is conditional, dependent upon a man’s place in 
the system. The divine king and the anthropomorphic god expand 
conceptions of human personality and of man’s place in the Universe. 
From the pre-eminent cosmic value of a divine king, and from the 
governance of the world for a Chosen People, we reach the presupposi- 
tion that man is the centre of the Universe. It was a rationalizing, as 
it were, of the mystical experience of man’s oneness or unity with all 
reality (p. 666 sq.).. Further examples are unnecessary ; it is enough to 
say that all early and undifferentiated stages of religious and other 
thought—the relationship between god and man and nature, the unity 
of the spiritual or psychical with the material or physical, and so 
forth—demand on our part a rational formulation of the relation 
between successive stages in the differentiation of thought and between 
the subsequently differentiated forms. 

There is much in primitive religion that corresponds to “‘ Divine 
Immanence”’: the interrelation of gods and worshippers within the 
system, the ‘‘ material reality of the spiritual,” and the interpenetra- 
tion where gods and men are alike one with nature. Where this 
realism prevails the actual world is both matter and spirit, and it 
seems probable that it is the origin of the dualist systems which have 
advanced beyond primitive religion and incorporate the learning and 
the science—or pseudo-science—of their age. This dualism may be said 
to mark the transition from ancient religion to the victorious Christi- 
anity which (1) was essentially a social religion rather than a theory of 
God, Man, and the Universe, and (2) explicitly preserved the teaching 
of Divine Transcendence. But whereas in this dualism the strictly 
transcendental aspect falls into the background, in early religion it can 
constantly be recognized. The divine king, in spite of his extraordinary 
powers, was subordinate to the supreme god (p. 545); the inter- 
penetration of man and nature (man’s power over and in nature) did 
not necessarily exclude the existence of supreme gods (often, no doubt, 
otiose), or of supreme principles ; and in the early ideas of “‘ holiness ”’ 
moral elements were by no means always wanting. Even in totemism 
—which can be described as an “‘ immanental ”’ system—there are, as 
distinct from the clan-totems, gods of the tribe (cf. p. 668). In general, 
the tendencies that made for Immanence were, properly speaking, 
balanced by those that made for Transcendence (p. 564). Religion 
has struggled between a dual and a triple organization. (a) The world 
is physical or material and psychical; but the psychical is not 
necessarily spiritual, even as the “‘ numinous ”’ is not necessarily sacred, 
or theistic (p. 553 sq.). On the other hand (b) Yahweh is above nature, 
and therefore above this psychical principle in nature (cf. p. 662). 
Similarly, man is flesh (sarx) and psyche, but the pnewma is the trans- 


ee a — 


THE TRANSCENDENT AS VITALIZING 685 


cendent, life-giving source; and without this transcendent element 
every system ceases to develop, becomes closed, decays and dies. 

We must recognize, with W. R. 8., that the central fact in religion 
is its progressive development. The difference between the vicissitudes 
of religions in general and the continuous explication of ideas up to 
the present day—no mere subjective conviction—is as vital for the 
world of thought as is man’s place in the world of organic life. The 
spiritual teaching of the great creative ages is marked by an utter 
uncompromising insistence upon Divine Transcendence, and upon the 
futility of all human anticipations that the mere continuity of any 
religion hitherto is a guarantee that it will survive, should it lack 
the essential spirituality. True spiritual religion is not necessarily 
that which is at the conceptual stage, or is mystical, or expresses 
itself in psychological or spiritual terms—upon this the lengthy history 
of religion is decisive. Nor is that which is necessarily embodied—in 
order to make it effective—in practice or rite, in doctrine or system, 
necessarily physical, material, or mechanical. The spiritual elements 
are those which prove to be pregnant ; upon them depends the further 
development of that which must have some embodiment and must 
be at least an implicit system. But outside every system is that which 
makes for its further growth; and without it progressive development 
sooner or later becomes impossible. Materialism is so far anavoidable 
that both the perceptual and the conceptual, the physical and the 
psychical, may belong to “‘ matter.” Even Pure Materialism seems 
methodologically necessary. But it becomes the closed system devoid 
of those pregnant elements which are fed from outside the system, and 
** matter,” in this sense, is the fixed concept, the absolutely delimited, 
the data of the statistician, and—as brute matter—it can be weighed 
and measured. 

Accordingly, the value of primitive religion lies in the fact that it 
reveals, not the historic origin, but the exceedingly rudimentary 
forms of the religious and other ideas from which modern thought has 
been derived. It shows us why they were true and effective for their 
environment, and how their strength lay in their interrelation one with 
another. The difference between the most primitive and the most 
advanced religion is precisely as instructive as that between the lowest 
and the highest organisms.1 It is the permanent significance of 


1 Although emphasis must be laid upon the increase of differentiation and 
‘specialization in the history of thought—and therefore on the distinction between 
what belongs to Religion and what falls outside it—the periods of relative un- 
differentiation, when some real unity is found to lie beneath the differences, no less 
require emphasis, though the questions that arise therefrom are of a philosophical 


orfmethodological nature and do not belong here. 


686 GODS = GOD 


W. R. S.’s work that problems which are usually approached in the 
light of definite theological, philosophical, or other presuppositions 
were being treated de novo by a man of extraordinary attainments, 
who had a special knowledge of the area wherein the great progressive 
movements in religion took place, and who, while intensely religious, and 
with distinct theological interests, had from the first the conviction 
that a reformulation of religious doctrine was the need of his age.* 

P. 445. Eronmm.—Cf. Phoenician pbx, used of Nergal (CIS. i. 119.) 
and of Astarte (Lidzbarski, Hphem. i. 155), and nAep (Lidz. ii. 89). 
In the Hittite treaties Mitra and Varuna are ildnu, but not Indra, 
perhaps because he was more clearly individualized as the national 
god. In the Amarna Letters tldnu is used with a singular verb in 
No. 96,; and the Pharaoh is addressed as “‘ my god,” tldnu(-1a), and 
by Abimilk of Tyre as (tlu)Shamshi-ia, ili-ia, ildni-ta (151,). The 
plural in Semitic does not necessarily refer to a number of single 
persons or things (Gesenius-Cowley, Heb. Gram. § 124), and the so- 
called ‘* broken plurals”’ are “‘ in all probability . . . singular abstract 
forms which gradually came to be used in a concrete and collective 
sense, and hence pass for plurals” (Wm. Wright, Comp. Gram. Semit. 
Lang. 148). The plural does not necessarily serve the same function 
everywhere, and the view that the plural Elohim is derived from 
polytheism—as though it denoted the Pantheon—has difficulties. In 
contrast to individualization, tendencies “‘ to pluralize the super- 
natural”? are recurrent: W. Warde Fowler observes it even in the 
inscriptions of the Empire (Roman Ideas of Deity, 16 sq.); for Greece, 
cf, the ‘‘ gentle gods,” etc. (Nilsson, 111 sg., 120). Or the plural is 
indefinite—“‘ They ’—see Meyer, Israel. 212 n., who considers the 
pluralis majestatis an inadequate explanation of such cases as Tera- 
phim, Di Manes, etc. At certain stages of religion the whole animal 
or tree species is sacred, and not the single specimen, which, in truth, 
is as eternal as the species and immanent init. In such cases there is a 
very real “‘ deity,” though it is without clear-cut personality (Durk- 
heim, 191, on the species-god of Samoa; Crawley, Tree of Infe, 252). 
Among the Australian Dieri the name for the supreme god Mura- 
Mura (“‘ very holy’) designates the ancestral beings; and the name 
Nuralie, the god of the tribes on the Murray River, is sometimes used 
as a collective expression for the primeval group of mythical beings 
(Durkheim, 290; cf. Marett, Threshold of Rel. 152 sq.). 


1 Though W, R. 8. passed from being an ardent theologian to one of the most 
penetrating critics of Semitic religion and sociology, he did not himself attempt 
the necessary task of reformulating theological doctrine. On the contrary, towards 
the close of his life he found occasion to declare that he felt he never could have 
been a theologian (Life, p, 535), See the Introduction above. 


ee —— 


RITUAL NUDITY 687 


P. 451. Nakep and Unsnop.—For nudity in religious ritual, 
ef. the use at Mecca (Wellh. 110; Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 172); on 
praying in a state of nudity, see Goldziher, Néldeke- Festschrift, 328 ; 
for classical examples, besides the Lupercalia (p. 479 above), see 
Hitrem, 52, and in general J. Heckenbach, De nuditate sacra sacrisque 
vinculis (Giessen, 1911). At the present day, when Palestinian women 
implore the help of a god or saint they uncover the breast or go 
entirely naked as a sign of humiliation (J POS. vi. 15); and in India they 
strip naked in a ploughing-rite where the rain deity is invoked (JRAS. 
1897, pp. 475 sq., 478 sq.; 1898, p. 195). For other Indian examples, 
see R. E. Enthoven, Folklore of Bombay, 329 sq. (nudity in learning 
and in practising arts of incantation, fertility rites, etc.). In the 
Rossel island, off Papua, there are districts each of which (called yaba) 
is owned by a person of rank and controls some important process 
of nature (wind, birth, sago, sun and moon, etc.). Any untoward 
conduct would prevent the owner from exploiting this power of control, 
and people who visit the yaba always shed their clothing and take 
nothing with them (W. E. Armstrong, Anthropos, xviil.—xix. [1923-4]). 
Nudity rites are prehistoric, and the nude female image with crossed 
arms holding her breasts, etc., is taken to be a fertility charm or fertility 
goddess. In Palestine people at the present day will go in rags when 
they pray for rain (JPOS. vi. 157), and the custom of tearing the 
garment, laying bare arm or shoulder in mourning, may be interpreted, 
partly, as a survival of a nudity rite (see Jastrow, JAOS. xx. 133-150, 
xxi. 23-39; ZATW. 1902, pp. 117 sqq.), and partly and more psycho- 
logically as a mere impulsive action. 

As regards shoes, the modern peasant will remove them at the 
shrine of an important weli (Canaan, JPOS. i. 170, 171 n. 1). The 
custom was in vogue in Babylonian ritual (see Jirku, ZAT'W. xxxvii. 
120); and in the Psalms of Solomon ii. 2 the writer complains that 
alien nations trample the altar with their sandals. For classical 
references, see Eitrem, 91 n. 6, 392 sqq.; Frazer, Paws. v. 202. 

P. 456.—Cf. usurtu, taboo, R. Campbell Thompson, Demons and 
Evil Spirits of Babylonia, ii. pp. xlin. 1, 119, Semitic Magic, 126 n. 2. 
Muss-Arnolt gives the meaning “‘ magical spell, curse.” 

P. 456. Paattic SymBots.—Various phallic objects have been 
found in Palestine, e.g. at the foot of a pillar at Megiddo (G. Schumacher, 
Tell el-Mutesellim, i. 128), and at Taanach (KE. Sellin, Nachlese auf den 
Tell Ta'annek, 1905, p. 9, fig. 7); one rudely carved to represent 
a man at Zakariya (Bliss and Macalister, Hxcavations in Palestine, 136, 

1 The Assyrian term for tearing off a garment in mourning is sharatu (see KAT’. 
603; Lagrange, 321; Winckler, Altorient. Forsch. ii. 29, 40). On its Arabic 
equivalent, used of a mark tattooed or cut on the person, see Kinship, 250. 


688 PHALLICISM 


plate Ixvii. no. 7). They were found in “ basketfuls” at the high 
place of Gezer along with Astarte plaques ; and one of the pillars is 
evidently itself phallic (Macalister, Gezer, ii. 394; “Vincent, Canaan, 
113). Besides some phallic objects at Petra, innumerable emblems 
were found at Nippur (Peters, JAOS. xli. 132, 141 sq.; cf. MDOG. 
1904, June, No. xxii. 26, a phallic-shaped pillar). The phallic origin 
of the boundary stones (kudurru) is doubtful. For the view that the 
ideogram IM=rdmdnu=god of the phallus, see Ungnad, ZA. xxxvi. 
272. Phallic emblems are rare on Babylonian seals (Ward, 65, 153), 
and they are not prominent in the cult of Adonis (Baudissin, 179). 
On the whole, indisputable female emblems on stone pillars are, in 
spite of arguments to the contrary, relatively rare; and phallicism 
is a secondary phenomenon in religion. This is not to deny that at 
times it became extraordinarily prominent; but phallicism never 
developed into an organized cult, even as phallic interpretations of 
religion have not succeeded in presenting any reasonable systematized 
theory of the history of religion. 

P. 465. Firstporn.—There are few traces of birthright in Baby- 
Ionia (see Meissner, Beitrdage z. altbab. Privatrecht, 16; Johns, Bab. and 
Ass. Laws, 162). For ultimogeniture or junior-right in the O.T. and 
elsewhere, see Frazer, FOT'. i. 429 sqq., who discusses some of the 
causes which may have led to primogeniture. Reasons for the special 
treatment of firstborn can be found, e.g., when a child is born to a child- 
less couple or in response to a vow (cf. GB. iv. 181). Such is the 
anxiety touching the successful issue of a marriage that sometimes 
it is only after the birth of a child that a marriage is considered com- 
plete (Crawley, Mystic Rose, 432, 464). Children, and especially first- 
born, have been sacrificed to cure barrenness or, more generally, to 
ensure health, good fortune, and fertility (Westermarck, Moral Ideas, 
i. 457, 460; GB. iv. 184). There are various savage rites—devouring 
the firstborn (New South Wales),? or killing them outright; or the 
firstborn may be sacrificed to ensure the preservation of his successors 
(FOT. iii. 173). Sometimes the first few children are sacrificed 
(GB. iv. 181, Abyssinia). Men, and especially children, are slain by a 
king to restore to life a friend or to preserve the life of a king (Crawley, 
277 sq.; GB. vi. 226). 

It is often believed that the father is reborn in his child ; * for this 


1See Lagrange, 190 sq.; Spoer, ZATW. xxviii. 271; Gressmann, xxix. 113- 
128; Sellin, OZZ. 1912, col. 119 sg.; Budde, 7b. 247 sg.; and Ganszyniec, Arch. 
f. Rel. xxi. 499 sqq. (on Lucian, Dea Syr. xvi.). 

2 Frazer, Belief in Immortality, ii. 89 n. (refs.). 

3 In the Laws of Manu the husband is reborn as an embryo in the wife (GB. iv. 
188 sqg.; see ERE. vi. 332, and A. B. Cook, Zeus, ii. 294). 


EE a 


SLAYING THE FIRSTBORN 689 


reason, at Tahiti and elsewhere, a chief should abdicate when a son 
is born (GB. iv. 190); hence the infant is put to death. The birth of a 
son may be an indication that the father will die (the Baganda, FOT'. 
i, 562). Again, because the son is in some way his father over again, 
the father’s name must not be given to the firstborn, and in Morocco 
the son is never called by the name of his father (if alive), unless that 
name be Mohammed. This name is frequently given to the first 
son, and the first daughter is called after the Prophet’s daughter 
Fatima. By a natural variation of the idea, a man is reborn not in 
his son but in his grandson. Commonly both have the same name 
(above, p. 510), and sometimes it is considered a misfortune for a chief 
to see his grandson (FO7'. i. 479 sq., 579 sq.). Throughout, the funda- 
mental ideas turn upon the perpetuation of the stock. 

In some social conditions it would be highly doubtful whether the 
firstborn was the true child of his mother’s husband (C. E. Fox, JRAI. 
xlix. 119). This might be immaterial (a) where it was enough that he 
belonged to the group of which his mother was a member, and (6) 
where “‘ a man is father of all the children of the woman by whom he 
has purchased the right to have offspring that shall be reckoned to 
his own kin ”’ (Kinship, 132, where the husband calls in another man). 
Again, (c) where ceremonial defloration was practised the legitimacy 
of the firstborn might be doubtful. Among the Banaro “of New 
Guinea this ceremony “ takes place in the spirit or goblin house of the 
village,” and the child is “‘ the spirit-child or goblin-child ” (FOT. 
i, 534); and elsewhere the firstborn will be of at least partly “‘ sacred” 
origin. Does this throw light upon the “‘ sacredness ”’ of the firstborn 
in Palestine, with its kedéshim, and its licentious cults ?2_ The evidence 
is admittedly incomplete (see p. 617 sq.): the firstborn were sacred to 
Yahweh and must be redeemed ; but infant sacrifice prevailed. The 
firstborn perpetuate the stock, and Yahweh was the spiritual father of 
Israel. Spiritual religion requires, not animal or human sacrifice, but 
* the souls of the righteous, and of children who have not yet sinned ”’ 
(late Jewish; Gray, Sacrifice, 172); and the Agadah of the third 
century A.D. developed the doctrine of the efficacious merits of pious 
children (Marmorstein, Doctrine of Merits, 95, 163). The 
new-born found interred in the sacred area at Gezer can hardly be 
proved, in view of the circumstances, to be sin-offerings (Micah, vi. 7), 
and it cannot, of course, be proved that they were firstborn; but 
whether they had died a natural death, or—as is more probable— 


1 Westermarck, Morocco, ii. 404. Of the same order is the conviction that the 
same name cannot be borne by any two persons of the same tribe (GB. iii. 370). 

2 Psellus (Migne, 832 sq., cited by R. C. Thompson, Sem. Magic, 223) refers to 
the orgies of the Euchits and the sacrifice of their offspring nine months later. 


44 


690 THE ASS AND THE QUAIL 


4 


had been sacrificed, the presence of the “ spirits”’ of infants in a 
sacred locality may be associated with the common resort of women to 
shrines in the hope of obtaining offspring—a hope the more intelligible 
if “‘ spirits”’ of infants were known to be there. 

P. 469. Ser anp THE Ass.—The “ golden ”’ Set is an old misinter- 
pretation of ‘‘ Set of Ombos”’ (Prof. T. E. Peet, private communication). — 
Set’s animal is uncertain; it was perhaps the okapi, which became ~ 
conventionalized and, in the Greek age, was identified with the ass.1 
The ass is generally reddish in colour (#.Bi. col. 344 and n. 1); andin 
Egypt the sacrifice of “‘ red”? men long persisted (Macalister, HRE. 
vi. 862; also Mader, 32 sq., 120 sqq.). In the Sumerian pantheon 
Esignun, one of the subordinate gods, tended the sacred asses of the 
great god Ningirsu (L. W. King, Sumer and Akkad, 259, 268), and 
the ass was the animal of the god Labartu. It is possible that the 
special regard for the ass, in the case of the redemption of the firstling 
(Ex. xxxiv. 20), was because, as a beast of burden, it performed the 
work of the gods in the realm of the dead (Campbell Thompson, 
Semitic Magic, 234). In any case, as an older animal than the horse, 
and on the analogy of the ‘“‘ horses of the Sun” (cf. 2 Kings xxiii. 11), 
we might expect it to have been no less sacred in its day. But 
there is little to be said concerning the ass in Semitic lore (C. J. Ball, 
PSBA. xxxil. 64 sqq.; cf. also A. B. Cook, Journ. of Hell. Studies, 
xiv. 81 sqq.). The Sumerian designation of Damascus as “ ass city” 
can hardly be explained (see, eg., Haupt, ZDMG. Ixix. 168; 
Winckler, Arab. Semit. Orient. 171 sq.). What Theophrastus (Porph. 
de Abstin. ii. 26) has to say about the ass and sacrifices may refer 
not to Judeans but Idumeans (Biichler, ZAT'W. 1902, pp. 206 sqq.). 
On the ass as a symbol of strength, cf. Wellh.* 157.2 . 

P. 469. HERACLES AND THE QuatL.—Heracles was slain by Typhon ~ 
and brought to life by Iolaos; see Frazer, GB. v. 111 sq. On Iolaos see 
Kinship, 226, 257, and on the “ resurrection”’ of Heracles see Baudissin, 
135, 172, Abel, Rev. Bib., 1908, pp. 570,577 sq. The meaning of the — 
name Eshmun has been much discussed (see Lidzbarski, 111. 260 sqq.), but 
remains uncertain. The identity of Eshmun and the Arabic swmdna — 
(quail) is favoured by Barton (267 n. 2) as against both Wellhausen (10) 
and Baudissin (208, 305 sqq.). Certainly, the meaning of the root ] 
(oily, fat, luxuriant, robust, etc.; see Baud. 207) is not unsuitable — 

1 Roeder, in Roscher’s Lew. iv. T77 sq., cf. 773, 776; see Kees, MV AG. 1924, a 
j. 25 sg. Newberry (Klio, xii. 397) identified it with Alian’s wart-hog (Phaco- — 
cherus africanus). 4 

2 Among his numerous manuscript notes to his copy of Wellhausen’s Heid- — 
entwm} (in the Library of Christ’s College, Cambridge), W. R. S. observes that, — 
according to Cazwini (i. 377,), riding backwards on an ass would cure scorpion — 
bite ; see also Hetd.1 216. 


THE QUAIL: COVENANTS 691 


for a deity of the Baal type (though it does not seem to enter into 
theophorous names), and fits the quail, which is a fat, plump bird. 
Like the penguin, the bird when dead is apt to breed worms (H.Bi. col. 
3991), and a characteristic malady produced by the bird was called 
morbus Herculeus (cf. Hommel, 730). Like the manna of the Israelites 
in the wilderness, the quail was divinely provided food, and the 
people, tired of manna and lusting after flesh, were “‘ consecrated’ in 
order to receive it (Num. xi. 18). But whereas the manna was not to 
be stored overnight (Ex. xvi. 19), the quails were eaten for a month, 
and with disastrous results. Further, whereas manna continued to 
be regarded as divine food and belongs to distinctively Israelite 
tradition, the quails had associations in both Phcenician and Greek 
mythology (cf. A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 544 n.), and they were perhaps 
burnt alive to Melkart-Heracles at Tyre and to Sandan-Heracles at 
Tarsus (GB. v. 112, 126 n. 3). It is noteworthy that in another 
Biblical story (Num. xxi.), where the Israelites complain of the manna 
and of the lack of flesh, they are thereupon bitten by “‘ serpents,” and 
the bronze serpent set up to cure them recalls the connexion between 
the serpent and the healing god Eshmun. 

P. 469. ApprTionaL Notre G.—For criticisms, see Stiibe, 337 sqq. 
(with references and fuller details); Eitrem, 391 n.1; Nilsson, Griech. 
Feste, 368; and Baudissin, 129, 144 (who questions whether Lydus 
knew of any Adonis festival in spring). Prof. W. R. Halliday (in a 
private communication) suggests that ckwdio éoxeracpévov (see p. 473) 
may be a periphrasis for some term like drexros, which meant technic 
ally an unshorn lamb less than a year old, and so taboo in Athenian 
sacrifice (Androtion, 41; Philochoros, 64). He compares ezizoxos 
‘Exdre €u moder... olv emimoxov tTedéay, 1.€. a mature sheep with 
wool on or unshorn; Paton and Hicks, Inscriptions of Cos, 401.* 
W. R. S.’s emendation would then become unnecessary. 

P. 481. CovENANT CEREMONIES.—Two types are to be distin- 
guished ; see Meyer and Luther, Jsraeliten, 556 sqq. (1) In Ex. xxiv. 
3-8, the blood of the sacrifice is sprinkled over the people and over the 
altar (representing Yahweh). (2) In Gen. xv., Jer. xxxiv. 18 sqq., the 
distinctive feature is the passage between the severed animal. The 
former is a familiar type (cf. Trumbull, Blood Covenant, 4 sqq.), but in 
the latter the significance of the severance and of the passage is not so 
clear. Parallels are found in purificatory and in imprecatory cere- 
monies (Frazer, FOT’. i. 398 sqq., 407; Meyer, 560 n. 1; Trumbull, 186). 
For the parallel Assyrian imprecatory ceremony, where the victim is 
not, however, a sacrifice, see Frazer, 401 sq., KAT’. 597, and MV AG. 
iii. 228 sqq. It has been thought that the passage between the divided 

1 See also Halliday, Liverpool Annals of Art and Archeology, xiv. 12, 


692 COVENANT AND COMMUNION 


victim may be a “‘ rite of passage,’ symbolizing the emergence into a 
new state (cf. Pilcher, PSBA. xl. 8 sqq.); Crawley, however, recalls the 
‘* split token,”’ the division of an object so that two contracting parties, 
by possessing each a half, are themselves parts, as it were, of a whole, and 
are thus most closely united (Mystic Rose, 238, 248, 258). On 
the Scythian custom (p. 402 n. 3), see Frazer, FOT'. i. 394, 414; and 
on the origin of the term bérith, see H.Bi. “* Covenant,” § 1; Lagrange, 
234 sq. | 
Westermarck does not agree that the underlying idea of covenant 
ceremonies is that of communion. He argues that the blood-covenant 
imposes duties upon the contracting parties and a penalty for their 
transgression ; and he invokes the Arabic ‘ar and ‘ahd where, in the 
former case, a ma_ exerts pressure upon a more powerful individual 
(or saint, etc.) in order to secure, if not rather to compel, his protection, 
and, in the latter, a man who undertakes a task “ is believed to expose 
himself to supernatural danger in case of bad faith.” As regards both, 
“‘ their primary object was not to establish communion, but to transfer 
conditional curses both to the men and to the god.”’ On the one hand, 
Westermarck rightly draws attention to certain forms of belief and 
practice which might easily be overlooked. On the other, there are 
gods who are believed to safeguard treaties and covenants (cf. Baal- 
Berith, p. 534); and when they are mentioned (e.g. in the Egypto- 
Hittite or the Hittite-Mitannian treaties), their ability to punish any 
infraction of the conditions is naturally not the only reason for their 
presence. In covenants and treaties the relationship between the 
parties and their gods is a more essential fact than the way in which 
the relationship is used, viz. in imprecations and curses. The very 
notion of transference of curses implies a relationship, and the object 
of exerting pressure upon gods (spirits, saints, etc.) is to utilize them 
in a way that is “ magical”’ rather than “‘ religious.”” Westermarck’s 
argument involves the theory that the “‘ magical” relation is more 
primary than the “ religious,” and that even if some covenant cere- 
monies are of a “religious” nature—which presumably would not be 
denied—the “‘ magical’’ aspect is more essential than the “ religious.” 
But W. B.S. throughout argues from the priority of “ religion.” And if 


this is only a“ theory,” it will claim to deal both with the facts and with % 
rival theories more adequately than does the “‘ theory” of the priority _ 


of magic, and to provide a philosophy more true to human nature. 


1 Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, ii. 208 sq.; Ritual ‘and Belief in 
Morocco, i. 564, 569, 


ee a re, 


COMPARATIVE TABLE OF PAGINATION 


In view of the use made by German and other continental scholars of Stiibe’s translation 
of Religion of the Semites, this adjustment of his table may be useful to English readers. 


CHAPTER I.  eerelas Hace. “ees English. | German. English. 

a 5 Sl 114 |120 156 
Be ere 41 58 | 81-2 115 | 121 157 
ae Eur heal? 59 «| «82 116 | 121-2 158 
oe g | 42-8 60 | 82-3 117 {122 454 
3 7 43 61 83-4 118 122-3 455 
Bd 5 43-4 62 | 84 119 | 123 456 
“is 44-5 63 | 85 120 |123 158 
ars 7 | 45 64 | 85-6 121 1124 159 
a - 46 65 | 86 122 |124-5 160 
y 6 46-7 66 | 86-7 123 | 125-6 161 
8 ‘6 47 67 | 87-8 124 1126 162 
ge et 48 68 | 88 125 |127 163 
9 12 48-9 69 88-9 126 127 164 

A as 49-50 70 ~| 89-90 127 

50 71 | 90 128 a Nace 
10-11 14 51 as “ee CHAPTER V. 

11 15 a 
12 16 51-2 73 91-2 130 128 165 
$08 17 | 52-3 74 | 92-3 131 }128-9 166 
+a He} 88 75 | 93 132 |129-30 167 
+4 a5} 38-4 76 | 93-4 133 | 130 168 
14-5 39 «| 54-5 77 | 94-5 134 |130-1 169 
15-6 21 55 78 95 135 1381-2 170 
is i 79 | 96 136 | 132 171 
16-7 23 56-7 80 96-7 Tay, 133 ie 
17-8 + en 81 97 188 |133-4 173 
18 25 58 82 97-8 441 134-5 174 
i8 26 58-9 83 98 442 135 175 
is te 99 443 1136 176 
carmen, | feI0 HE YT 

CHAPTER IT. , ; 
60 84 1101 446 |138 179 
19 28 60-1 85 |101 139 |138-9 180 
19-20 29 61-2 86 139 181 
20-1 30 62 87 1 rains 139-40 182 
21 31 | 62-3 88 Caaerme LY 140-1 183 
22 32 63 89 | 102 140 |141 184 
22-3 33 64 90 102-3 141 142 185 
23 34 64-5 91 103 142 142-3 186 
24 35 65-6 92 104 143 143 187 
24-5 36 66 93 105 144 144 188 
25 a7) 66-7 94 |105-6 145 | 144-5 189 
26 38 68 95 106-7 146 145-6 190 
26-7 39 68 96 107 147. 146 191 
27 40 69 97 107-8 148 147 192 
28 41 69-70 98 108-9 149 147-8 193 
28-9 42 70 99 109 150 148 194 
30 43 ral 100 110 151 148-9 195 
30-1 44 71-2 101 110-1 152 149-50 196 
31-2 45 42, 102 ime! 153 150 197 
32-3 46 73 103 112 446 151 198 
33-4 47 74 104 112-3 447 151-2 199 
34 48 74-5 105 113-4 448 152 200 
34-5 49 75 106 114-5 449 152 201 
35-6 50 76 107 115-6 450 153-4 202 
36 51 (a 108 116 451 154 203 
37 52 77 109 a fo Wd 452 154-5 204 
37-8 53 78 110 117-8 453 155 205 
38 54 78-9 Lit 118 454 156 206 
39 55 79-80 112 119 154 156-7 207 
39-40 56 80 113 119-20 155 157 208 


693 


694 COMPARATIVE TABLE OF PAGINATION 


German. English. | German. English. | German. English. | German. English. q 
158 209 "| 203-4 265 || 248-9 324 || 296 384 
158-9 210 | 204 266 | 249 325 | 296-7 385 
159, 161 211 | 205 267 | 250 326 | 297-8 386 
160 456/205 268 | 250-1 827 |208-9 887, 489-00 
160-1 4 251-2 2 . 
212 252 329 
1st CHAPTER VIII. 252-8 830 na CHAPTER oe 
253— 
CHaprer VI. | 206 rip ea fs 332 | 300-1 389 
eect Sida 333 | 301-2 390 
yee tye Ua 2eL | 255 481 | 302 391 
eer en Kee 272 | 255-6 482 | 302-8 302 
pe ns io a 278 | 256-7 483 | 303 393 
164-5 217 | 210 275 if 
258 485 | 304-5 395 
165 218 | 210-1 276 is 
oe AOL ts 276 | 258-0 334 | 305 396 
: . 259-60 335 | 305-6 397 
esta wing eh 278 | 260-1 336 | 306-7 398 
167 221 | 213 e790 1200 ph ay 
9 
ee ec eee pe {| 2bie8 338 | 307-8 400 
168-9 223 | 214 281 . 
262 339 | 308-9 401 
169-70 924 | 215 289.1) eA ne 
vibe eter Fa fb ae 288 - | 260-4 341 |310 - 408 
A mee hi 28 | 264 342 | 810-1 491 
171-2 227 | 216-7 285 | 268 ee a <05 
toe ieee ia 286 |265-6 344 | 312 404 
ays goF ene 287 | 266 345 | 312-8 405 
173-4 230 | 219 2gs | 268 eel var teh 
174-5 231 | 219-20 289 
267-8 347 |314 407 
nike Pee cd 200 | 268 348 | 314-5 408 
wh ae er 201 | 268-9 349 | 315 409 
dae gop aloes me 350 | 315-6 410 
17 222, 
0 Be et Ct ea 
178-9 237 | 223-4 466 ae a 
179 238 | 224-5 467 eee rh 
180-81 240 | 226 469, 204 | 974 ase laa ae 
Ae eh ee 208 it ora 354 | 320-1 417 
181-2 242 | 227-8 296 J 
272-3 355 | 321-2 418 
182 243 | 228 207, Al ata pat ect ep 
ue oe | 273-4 357 | 322-3 420 
230-1 301 
183 244-5 | 230-1 301 1275-6 360 | 325 423 
184 453 | 231 S07 ues 361 | 325-6 424 
184-5 abo een. epi es 362 | 326 125 
185-6 ieee 30e [277-8 363 | 327 426 
186-7 ND be eae 364 | 327-8 427 
187-8 462 See B08. 270 365 | 328 428 
188 465 [300 307 | 279-80 366 | 329 429 
189 466 eons rinsed bi 367 | 329-30 430 
189-90 405%) one p08 erat 368 | 330 431 
190 245 | 287 310 | 981-2 369 | 330-1 432 
191 246 282 370 | 331-2 433 
191-2 247 283 a7 | 332 434 
192 248 233- 333 35 
193 249 Creer | ae 373 | 333-4 436 
193-4 250 | 239 312 | 285 374 | 334-5 437 
194 251 | 239-40 313 | 285-6 375 | 335 438 
195 252 | 240-1 314 | 286 376 | 336 439 
195-6 253 | 241 315 | 287 377 | 336 440 
196 254. | 241 479 | 287-8 378 | 337 469 
197 255 | 241-2 480 | 288 485 |337-8 470 
197-8 256 | 242-3 481, 315 | 289 486 | 338-9 471 
198 257 | 243-4 316 | 289-90 487 | 339-40 472 
199 258 | 244 317 | 290-2 488 | 341 473 
199-200 259 | 244-5 318 | 292 489 |342 474 
200 260 | 245 319 | 292-3 379 |343 475 
201 261 | 246 320 | 293-4 380 | 344 476 
201-2 262 | 246-7 321 | 294 381 | 345-6 477 
202 263 | 247 322 | 295 382 | 346-9 478 


203 264 | 248 323 | 295-6 383 | 349 479 


INDEX OF BIBLICAL PASSAGES 


GENESIS 

PAGE 

eae 518, 535 
ale pe . Le 
i.6-8 . 106 
i. 28, 29. 307 
li, 5.8q. . 518 
ii. 16 sqq. mga) 
iii. 15, 21 307, 437 
iv. 1 ; 513, 610 
ae ee 178, 307, 462 
iv. 5 sqq. 648 n. 4 
ry owe 1 oe abe 4G 
iv. 14 sq 270 
iv. 18 526 
v. 9 43 
v. 25 526 
v. 29 575 
Ti.2, 4 446 
vi. 5-7 . 663 
viii. 3 sqq. 417 
viii. 20 . 378 
viii. 21 “4. 663 
ix, 1 sq. 307 
ix. 4 40. n, 601 
ibd 11-17 663 
ix. 18 sqq. 575 
a n 5, 495 
Sti, 6 196 
Xik k 116 
xiv. 5 310 
xiv. 7 181 
MVS | 126 
xv. 3 . 613 
xv. 8 sqq. 219, 319, 
480, 691 

xvi. 2 513 
xxi 25. 105 
6 4 he ae . 186 
Xxil. f 362, 465 
eit, J. . 490 
xxii. 8-13 309 
wo . 378 
xxii. 10. ‘ Seas 
xxii. 13sq. 366, 602 n. 5 
xxii. 14. ; =~ 7146 
Sx 21. 43 
xxiv. ll . 172 


xxv. 8 

pore Arete LG 5 
xxvi. 17 sqq. 
xxvi. 30 
XXVil. 7. : 
Raw: 15:27 
XXVli. 29 : 
EVIL oo, oO 
XXvill. 12 
Xxvili. 12 sqq. 
xxviii. 18 sqq. 


XXVili. 22 
<xix, 8, 
xxix. 14 

xxx. 41, 42 
Xxxi. 45 sqq. . 


Xxxil. 2 
XXXil. 
XXXil. 
XXXil. 
Sx xii, 32 
XXXil. 
Soe ae 
xxxv. 8 
xxxv. 14 
xxxvi. 14 
Xxxvi. 28 
XXxvil. 27 
XXXVlil. . 
xxxviil. 15 
XXXVIil. 24 
xlv. 8 
xlviii. 14 
SnxX. oO 
xlix. 8 
als bea BRO 
xlix. 24. 
Wisse. .. 


Exopvus 


ii. 16 
iii. 1 sqq. 
iii. 5 
iv. 22 sqq. 
695 


PAGE 
547, 605 
513 
105 
569 


452, 453 
196 
232 

43 

43 
274 
611 sq. 
612 n. 
419 
45, 511 
423 
465 
402 
579 
569 n. 
320 


105 ii 
117 {ii 


453 
609 


PAGE 
vi. 12 - 609 
viii. 19 . 561 
xi 94. ns 406 
xii. 23 610 
xii. 43 sqq. 609 
xii. 46 345 
xill. 4 . 645 
x 13. 450, 464 
xvi. 19. 691 
xvii. 15. 116 
xviii. 12 596 
xix. 4 118 
ba bead dul . 649 
xix. 10-13 342, 452 
xix lop. 4 vat be 
xxi.24 69, - . 11,202; 
2045 374, 378 
xxi, 13,14 148, 429 
Xxil. 28. 464. 
xxii. 29. . 240 
xxii. 30. 462, 464 
xxiii. 15 t) 347 
xxiii. 18, 220, 384 
xxiii. 19 291, 240, 576 
Xxiv. 4 sqq. . 157, 211, 
318, 325, 344, 417, 
691 
SIV. Go. 481 
xxiv. 10 sq. . 596 
Xxxli. 6 589 
xxxiv. 6, 7 163 
xxxiv. 13 203 
KKRIV. L Oe 463 
xxxiv. 20 450, 463, 
464, 690 
Xxxiv. 25 221 
Xxxiv. 26 see xxii. 19 
xxxiv. 33 sqq. 674 
xxxvii. 17 sqq. 488 
LEVITICUS 
i. 14 n! 3 2219 
ea : Me G41 
ii. 1 sqq 219 
ii. 3 226 
ii. 11, 13 290, 221 
lii. 3 . eoie 


696 


INDEX OF BIBLICAL PASSAGES 


Leviticus (contd.) cela 379 rit 
PAGE| Oo Oe 
iii. 4 634 n. 3|*xi. 1 sqg. eae 
iii, 11 201, 578 | BY ye 
rae, 23g] Xxi. 8, Toga. 201, 620 
iv. : ‘ . 344 XXi. 9 > a2; 419 
i 611,17,30, 92 |Eaih 1G ame. «5D 
fy. 16 LP ae ie xxii. 28. 576 
| t 223 Xx. 30. » B2S9 
vi, 16 (22) _ 993 Xxiil. 14 1 DA) 
Wii20(27) +) 849,401 FE 1 
58 |e 

vi. 22 (29) red estat gad 
vi. a (30) sa mci 28 _ AGL 
Vii. : i ; 
Eel Sl 9290 | XXVii. 28 . 454 
Wild os . 242 
vii. 15 sqq 239, 387 NUMBERS 
VEEN? T rene asst ee, 641 
viii. 15 436/43 464 
viii. 23 344111 sag) 180 
x. 9 « ABR a 558 
PLT 344, 349) yi 10, 219 
xi. 32 sq 447) vi. 13 sq. 332 
m4! 293 vi. 15 rime’ 
xii. 6, 8 Rage ac) vill. 10 . . 423 
Sie ods gy: 219, 344,153 18 . 691 
14, 22, 49 sao a0 xiv. 14 sqq. <a 
652 n. 2} xy 5 7 226 
aay. 7,.53 422) 97 - 8830 
ivy, Dark 334 xv. 38 2. ee 
xiv. 17, 51 428 | x73 3 . 549 
xv. 14, 29 « 219) e055 15 648 n. 4 
XVi. : 643, 652 | vii. 7 eOESF 
xvi. 15. - 417) xviii, 18 . 464 
xvi. 19, 33 408, 436 | xviii, 19 667n 
wyipel. - O22) 9 584 n 
xvi. 24 . 452} xix. 4, 376 
xvi. 24, 28 - 351) xix. 7-10 351, 368, 426 
Xvi. 26, 28 451, 453|si5,17 ,  . 3. «498 
Whe . 348 14 ! 505 
xvi. 30 . 408, 672 airy 24 ay 547 
xvi. 33 - 436) xxi. 6 Sqq- a Sot 
xvii. 4 162} xxi.17,18 135,170, Beale 
Xvii. 7 + L2G <x 29 é 
xvii. 10, 11. 288/807 | ye 94 ae 
xvii. 11. . 366, 417 xxv. 4 419 
xvii. 13,15 . 235] xxviii. 7 230 
xix, 2 . 675 | xxx. 14 482 
xix. ota ee xxxi. 19 sqq. . 491 
x1x : i. 28 .. 460, 637 
xix. 23 sa 159, 463, 583 | ey. 26 soy. 162 
xix. 24 221 

ix: 26. 343 
eae O7 324, 325 DEUTERONOMY 
Tis AB 322, 334] 1. 4 93 
xxi 4,5 162 | ii. 6, 28 | 105 


PAGE 
ii. 34 641 
iii. 6 93 
iv. 19 36, 58] n: 5 
vii. 13 310, 477, 603 
Vii. 26 454 
eG 609 
xi. 30 196 
iso 203 
RHF . 696 
xii. 16 235, 238 
pay ee hed #99: 464 
xXiisce 40 
mil. LBA 454 
Poh pk Reet 41, 322 
xv. 19 sqqg. 464, 584n 
CV ewe 187, 188 
Xvili. 4 . 241, 242 
ea. 3 584 n. 
xxi. 4 371, 417 
y 4 eae Pee 2 A - A G4 
xxi. 12 . 334, 447, 619 

pa ae Be : . 465. 
XT LS ‘ 60 
xn Zi 340, S22 
XXii. 6 sq. 576, 639 
xxiii. 1O-15 . 455 
xxii. 17 (18) sq. 612 
xxiii. 18 (19) 292 
xxiv. 19 : 576 
xxvi. 1 sqq. 241 
xxvi. 12 249 

xxvi. 13 - 284 
SENN Cas 164 
xxix, 4.193". 593 
xxx, 11-14. 593 
Xxxii. 6 41 
xxxii. 18 517 
"| Xxxiii. 2 118 
‘| xxxiii. 9 344 
XXxiii. 16 194 
Xxxili. 29 402 
XXxiv. 9 423 

JOSHUA 

iv. 5 . 2025 
iv. 20 ot 2a 
v. 3 sqq . 609 
v. 15 > 463 
vi. 18 « 262 
vi. 24 . 454 
vi. 26 . 464 
Vii. . 454 
vii. 1, 11 162, 421 
vii. 9 . bes 
vii. 13 sq . 648 
vu. 15 .° ab¢ 
vii. 19 559 n. 


INDEX OF BIBLICAL PASSAGES 
a ie ot ob, 3 RA 


JOSHUA (contd). 


vi 240. 
vill. 30 sqq. 
Peek . 
ix. 14 

moe. 25, 
xi: 

Sx . 
Xxiv. 26 
Sxiy. 27 


JUDGES 


116, 378, 
378, 
162. 


119, 
a. 220, 
_ 221, 254. 


xv. 3-5. 
XVi. 23 sqq. 
Xvii. 2 
ax. 29. 
xx. 26 
"xX. oo 

xx. 40 


Ruta 
i. 14 sqq. 
lil. 9 
iv. 7 


636, 


94, 


193 
633 


36 
674. 
636 


1 SAMUEL 


PAGE 

hae tel a 254 
Loa), 24 oo es 
ii. 8 4 ra on 
u. 13 sqq ~ ake 
li. 15 ~ B84 
1016 238, 487 
it od - Rola 
ii. 25 Sn atGbL 
ii. 27 sqq 421 
iii. 14 238 
iv. 7 sqq. ald Bao 
ety) 584 n. 
vi. 14 ; . 3809 
Vibe’. . 430, 580 
vii. 9 . 368, 402, 464 
titi de . oe BOS 
viii. 15, 17 246, 460 
ee bie "4 e 28u 
ix. 9 126 
co 8 Bee Boies bigs 
ixA2, 13 254, 279 
1x. 22 254 
» eres 248, 254 
Si 402 
Sac 66 
xii. 19 668 n. 
arise Oe » 402 
Ri 346 
mi. 16. . 568 
xiv. 15. 580 
xiv. 24 sqq. 640 
xiv. 32 sq. 202 
Xim o4 . 341 
Biv au: 116 
XV. 454 
“i ie) es 362 
Xvii. 34 126 
XVili. 3 sqq. . 335 
xviii. 18 662 
tee. Se ae 3 pee Ss 
xx. 6,29 254, 276, 627 
4 et ae 3 . 239 
mah 4 242 
xxi. 5, 6 455 
meteT oe 4.56 
Xxi. 9 460 
xxii. 7 : 460 
ei? 4, 11 640 
xxiv. 15 ot OG! 
xxv. 4 sqq. 254 n. 6 
xxv. 29. .” 26386 
xxvi. 19 36, 46, 93, 
238, 347 

xxvii. 6,15. . 640 
xxx. 20. 459 
xxx. 24 sq. 637 
xxx. 26. 36 


ori 1) 
Sard to. 


2 SAMUEL 


Ried d 


XIV. 
Vel L 

xvii. 18 

abs @ Plas 

xx. 8 

XXi. 

xxi. 1 

xxi. 9 

<i 3.5 
oo. Ae EY Ree 
yo aed RUM ; 
ores el Fee Ee ae 
Kei. 7 
xxiii. 20 
ESL, 


419, 


1 Kinas 
172, 


246, 


Vili. 22, 54 
Vili. 64 . 
1x. 20 2 
Sania 3 
xi. 5 5 

xii. 30 
xyots 
Pa (ated Benes 
ap ROR 
KVi; ot": 
XViil. 
Xvili. 5 
xviii. 19 
XVill. 26 


698 


1 Kings (conéd.) PAGE 
PAGE| xxv. 18 560 n 
Xvill. 27 564) xxv. 24. . 508 
Xviii. 28 : ok 
Xvili. 33 sqq. 93 
xvi, Ae eRe es 
Six -160, ; - 582143. 53 45 
xIXA Loe 571 liv. 14 660 n 
pe ha Bee 93 | vii. 9 645 
xxi. 13, 19 172 |ix. 7 429 
xxii. 38. : a ohis 
NEHEMIAH 
2 KiInas 
ih . 645 
i. 8 , agai TS Ge eT 
ii. 13 sqq. 423 |ili. 8, 31 626 n 
in, 2h 172{ viii. 10 . 254 
lil. 4 311, 461 
iii. 27 362, 376, 464 Jos 
iv. 42... 0 B41 
v. 10 sqq. 676 n. ji. 1 43 
vii. 2, 19 105]i. 21 517 
Vile won 419] v. 23 122 
x. 22 . 451} x. 10 sq 513 n. 
xorg 561 n. | xiii. 16 179 
4 at @ | 485 | xiv. 13 648 
xii. 4 247| xvi. 18 417 
xii. 16 347, 423 | xxiv. 5 578 
xiii. 6 . 188, 189, 561 
xiv. 9 133 PsALMS 
V0 66 
xvi. ll sq a th ee ss 104 
xvi. 14 486, 487 | xv. ‘ : TURE 
svi «2 ~ 246 ey 4A, . 203; 280 T, 
LVL lte 93 | xvii. 10 380 
Xvii. 24 sqq. . . 93) xxvi. 6 sqq. 340 
EVI. 26023, 77; 92, 122 beeen) 648 
XVii. SL . . 363 | xxxix. 12 (13) 78 
Xviii. 33 «J O2atyt. 8: (7) 233 
Xxi. 6 . 362} xlv. 13 (12) . 346 
Exi. 7 « SL Sarita ess, ; : . 224 
xxii. 625 sq. | 1.5 : 319 
Xxili. 6 © LSS ideG lege, »' oe 
Kod. 7s 192}1. 13 : . Babe2as 
xxiii. 9 . 241 /li. 18 sq. : . 646 
xxiii. 1] 293, 690 | lxix. 28 644 n 
xxiii. 15 . 490) Ixxxiv. 3 . 160 
Ixxxvii. 6 644 n 
1 CHRONICLES civ. lsq . 675n 
civ. 14.sqq. .° ere 
iV. 14,21, 23 626 n.|civ. 16 . . 103, 159 
xii. 18 668 n. | cvi. 6 A 429 
xxix. 14 584 | exviii. 27 341 
xxix ld 78 | cxix. 19 78 


2 CHRONICLES 


xv. 16 


; 456 
xxv. 12 


419, 654 


cxxxii. 3 sq. . 481, 484 


cxxxv. 7 . 106 
exxxix. 15 2 DED 
exxxix. 16 644 n 
exlviii. 7 om TG 


INDEX OF BIBLICAL PASSAGES 


PROVERBS 

PAGE 

lil. 27 95, 533 
lii. 34 581 n. 5 
vi. 8 578 

> Ay be . 648 
xv. 3 66 
hve Oh. 653 n. 
Kv SS", 559 n. 
xix. 6 .  at6 
xxi 18. 648 
<xinS Tee 455 
EXVijces 555 
XXVii. 27 221 
XXviii. 13 648 n. 1 

by nce oe Be! 160 

ECCLESIASTES 
ili. ‘ dt he 522 
xi. 2 n. 
xii. ae 23 
CANTICLES 
lii. 11 reg 
vii. 5 156 
IsaAIAH 

ya Q . 103 

i. 11 sqq. oo 2Ey 

i, 24 . 589 

eed A 662 n. 
ii. 2 sqq. 75, 662 n. 
Vi. . f 652 n. 1 
ix. 8 sqq. . 589 
X10 ce 66 
xi, 2 ra) 
xi. 6 sq. 307 
xii. o 402 
<i, Shoe 120 
SIV. tase 57 n., 545 
xv. 2 sqq. 430, 490 
xvii. 8 . 188, 489 

.| xvii. 10 sqq. . 197 
xix 19 : 570 

Pa bed bee Ot bs toe. 262 
.| xxiii. 15 sqq. 612 
xxv. 6 596 
XXvVii. 9 489 
xix | 198 
xxxZ29% 254 
Bree eee ae 
xxxili. 14 <* eae 
xxxiv. 14 se leo 
XXXVI 7 . 490 

. | Xxxvii. 1 » "4a0 
xlv. 8 662 n 


INDEX OF BIBLICAL PASSAGES 699 
IsatAu (conitd.) EZEKIEL PAGE 
PAGE PAGE | iv. 23 
xivi..3 BLG hiv. ; 640 liv. 8 347 
xlix. 15. Z : 57 iv. 14 oda live 12 196 
i 3 e 569 n. | vii. 18 a mitten i Via lobe <: 455 
liii. - 629, 631, 654} viii. 10 - 130;357, iv. 17-19 628 
liii. 7 309 625 sqg., 629| vii. 14 . 430 
liv. 9 sq. 663 | viii. 12 . 357 | viii. 1 96 
lvii. 8 456] viii. 14 . 189, 625 }ix. 3 92, 96 
lvii. 15 . 620 | viii. 16 . 486 | ix. 4 93, 238, 241, 329 
lviii. 3 Gio i xi. 19. . 649 |ix. 15 96 
lxi. 3 233 | xili. 1'7—21 635|x. 9 ~ 429 
xii. 4 108 | xvi. 4 617| x. 14 . 419 
lxiii. 3 580|xvi. 8. 674 | xi. 1 Poet AE 
lxiii. 16. 546 | xvi. 17 . 456) xii. 3 sq oul 
iseile 528) xvi. 18 . . 233] xii. 4 sq 446, 610 
Ixv. 3 sqq. 357, 626, 629|xvi. 20 . 373, 394 | xiii. 2 EMoTL 
Ixv. 4 pee Ob, 343 i xviiis 6. . 343 
xv O.. 450| xviii. 9 . 676 
Ixvi. 3,17 291, 343, 357|xx. 26 . 464 JOEL 
xxi.9 . 343 
li. 12 sqq. 431 
JEREMIAH ee aT 486 
xxiii. 14 625 — 
nit 3 583 Xxiil. 37 394 lV. [iii. | 9 402 
ii. 11 36 xxiii. 39 372, Sie 
ii, 27 ©. 42,189,569n.|2=Vii. . . «. 612 Amos 
Wi.25 =. . 429| xxvii. 11 sq¢ 545 
ad 402 | XXxili. 25 343 |i, 2 : : + LDS 
vi. 10 609 XXXVIi. 29 518 rie 1 es iz 
Wii. _ 189| ¥xxix. 17 sqq se eOk1 11,27, 8 249, 347, 430 
vii. 31 372, 464 xli. 645 n. 2 iii. 12 : be da 
$13 106 | Xli. 22 ; eects. 14 . 489 
xi. 15 (LXX) 939| xiii. 18 sqq. . . 436]iv. 4 242, 247 
4219 309 | xiii. 24 . . 454, 595liv. 5 220, 254 
xiv. 12. 433, 673 xliv. 6 sqq. oneal ive Ll 249 
xv. 19 . 620 die eee ioe 3 7T7\v. 19 126 
xvi. 5 626, 628 xliv. 7, 9 +609 | v,-22 231 
xvi. 6 322, 324. xliv. 19. neal vel 7 57 n. 
xviii. 23 648 xliv. 20. 324, 483] vi. 4 aa 
xix. 5 372, 464 xlv. 9 sqq. . 246) vi. 7 626, 628 
xix.13. 230 xlv. 18 sqq. . 4386, 651} vi. 10 ae i 
tiie B.. , . 660 | xlv. 19, 20 (LXX) 408} vii. 1 246 
xxv. 15 sqq- i 4 597 xlvi. te hes e 451 vii. 13 247 
xxv. 23. . 325 xIvii. 9, 12 184} vii. 17 93 
xxxi. 15 546 n. viii. 10 324 
xxxi23 . 662n. DANIEL viii, 14 . 181, 182, 558 
xxxi. 31 sqq. . 593 ix. | - + 489 
xxxii 29. 230 iv. 16 (13) 128 n, |ix. 3 156 
xxxii. 35. . «-372/iv. 30 sqq. 545 
xxxiv.18 . 480, 691 MICAH 
eave, 9 eg... 484 HosEa 
2c01 0,10. 456 ii. 5 - Ave 
xliv. : ; weLss ii: . . 456/iv. 13 454, 460 
xliv. 17,18 . . 230] ii. 8 sqq. . 96|v. 6 (5) eo? 
li. 28 402) ii..11 (13) ~« 617) v. 12 agg 188, 203 
ii. 13 (15) 252, 452|v. 13 (14) 560 n 
11S (20 ae bea tty, 219, 238, 362, 
LAMENTATIONS ay (20) 299 372, 410, 689 
yw 261 J iii. 4 203 | vii. 14 : . 156 


700 


INDEX OF BIBLICAL PASSAGES 


HABAKKUK 
PAGE 
Ra es) 66, 648 
ii. 3 one i 
ZEPHANIAH 
by} 254, 596 
i. 12 564, 654 
HAGGAI 
j Rees 582 
eh he 239 
ZECHARIAH 
iv. 0 488 
vw. 1-4 164 
v. 5 8qq. 422 
Xs 343 
sa Peer 131 
xiv. 6 sq. 582 
xiv. 17 sqq. 663 
MALACHI 
i. 6 tke ; 59 
a it « Pha : . 620 
I Rig fyd aie 201 
li. 4 sqq. ; . d44 
1 yy Ras : Raebelak! 54 
lii, 8—12 584. 
iii. 10 2 ee 
iii. 17 46, 59 


JUDITH 

PAGE 
ii. 8, vi. 2~—4 . 545 
xi. 12 sq. 584, cf. 241 n. 4 

ECCLESIASTICUS 

i 15 230 
Xxxix. 26 579 
> a | 517 
L115 579 


1 MACCABEES 


li. 32 sqq. 640 
v.45". 310 
2 MACCABEES 
1. 14 516 
1V,.a3 148 
xii. 40 209 
MATTHEW 
Al) vse ‘ . 664 
v. 45 644 n., 663 
v.48 . - 675 
vi. 25-33 639, 663 
vi. 32 sq. 552 
vii. 22 sq. 528 
xi. 30 593 
xxv. 40 663 
ixxv. 41 sqq. . 528 
xxvi. 23 315 
LUKE 
eae 4. 120 
xiii. 25 sqq. 528 
JOHN 
vi. 70 652 n. 2 
vil. 37 231 

RY, Vighhey Mike a eee 
xiv. 30 652 n. 2 
xv. 4 506, 663 
Acts 
in. 15 652 n. 2 
xxiii. 14 481 


ROMANS 
PAGE 
vii. 12-14 665 
viii. 19 sqq. 663 


1 CoRINTHIANS 


lii. 6 ; 584 

x. 18 sqq. 597 

ToaZVo 264 

Do. oe et ae 593 

2 CORINTHIANS 

Ley 639 
COLOSSIANS 

i. 18 584 n. 663 n. 
1 TrmotTHy 

ili. 16 647 n. 1 

HEBREWS 

rie 512, 663 

ize 7 JhOEs 

ize? 427 
REVELATION 

xii.~ x : » & B20 

xxi. 5 : 650 n. 


JUBILEES, Book OF 


644 


xu. 16 sq. : 
652 n. 4 


xlix. 15 sq. 
TESTAMENT OF JUDAH 
Xii. : i Headed «3 yf 
Xvii. 2 617 
PsaLMg oF SOLOMON 
tee 687 


OpES OF SOLOMON 


V2 ‘ ; - 576 
517 


GRHENERAL INDEX 


The references in Roman numerals are to the Introduction 


“Abd-, names in, 46, 68, 508 

Abdi-hiba, 664, 665 n. 

Abi-, names in, 45 

Ablution after a piacular sacrifice, 
351 ; removes taboo, 451 sq. 

Abnil, idol at Nisibis, 210 

Absalom, long hair of, 484 

Abstinence, original significance of, 
485. See Fasting 

Abstract names of deities, 509, 
679 n. ; abstract ideas in concrete 
form, 669; abstract reasoning, 
655. 

Abyssinian names denoting kinship, 
510 

Acacia. See Samora 

Achan’s breach of taboo, 162 

‘Acica, ceremony, 133, 328 sqq., 610 

Adar, god, 292 

Adon, divine title, 68, 411 

Adonia, 411 

Adonis, or Tammuz, 68,411; Cyprian 
Swine-god, 411, 475; at Byblus, 
191, 329: mourning for, 262, 
ail s9.;. gardens of, 177 n. 2, 
197 n.; sacred river, 174 

Adranus, god, 292 

Adytum, 200 

Africa, and the Semites, 496; cattle 
sacred in, 296 sqq., 600 

After-birth preserved, 634 n. 6 

Agag, sacrifice of, 362, 363, 369, 
492 

Ahalla, Arabic, 432 

Ahaz, altar of, 378, 485 sqq. 

‘Ahad, 692 

Ahi-, names in, 45 

Ahl al-ard, Arabic, 198 

Ahura-Mazda, 529-657, 659 

‘Ain al-Bacar, at Acre, 183 

Akhyila, Arabic, 157 

Allat, 316, 566; at Petra and Elusa, 
56 sq.; at Tabala, 212; at Taif, 
210 


All-Fathers. See Supreme Gods 


Allon, Hebrew, 196 

Al-‘Ozza. See ‘Ozza 

Al-Shajara, 160, 187 

Altar, as table, 202; as place of 
slaughter, 341; as hearth, 377 sqq., 
487; cleansing of, 408; Ahaz’s, 
378, 485; heavenly, 633 

Altars, candlestick, 384, 487 sq. 

‘Am (uncle, people, name of god), 
510, 547, 610, 662 

Amathus, human sacrifices at, 376 ; 
asylum, 148 

Ambrosian rocks, 193 n. 

Amen, Ram-god, how worshipped, 
302 ; annual sacrifice to, 431 

Amharic, an analogy, 496 sq. 

Amir, Arabic, 62 

‘Amm-anas, South Arabian god, 225 

Ammi-zaduga, the name, 659 n., 
664. 

‘Amr, anecdote of, 162 

Amulets and charms, various, 183, 
336, 381 sqq., 437, 448, 453, 457, 
468 

Anaitis, worship of, 321 n. 

‘Anath, Anathoth, 211 

Ancestors, cult of, 156 n., 508, 
544 sqq., 605, 670; dead rejoin 
ancestors, 675 

Androgyny, 472, 478, 517 

Angels, in old Hebrew tradition, 
445 sq. 

Animal-names and totemism, 622, 
624; in Judah, 625 

Animal sacrifice. See Sacrifice 

Animals, their ‘‘ souls’ preserved, 
585; sacred, protected, 543; two 
kinds of, 357 

Animals, and men not distinguished, 
588 n. 3, 677, see 541 n.; their 
kinship with gods and men, see 
Kinship and Totemism 

Anointing, 233, 383 sq., 582 sq. 

Ansab, sacred stones, 201, 211 

Anselm, 157 n., 424 


701 


702 GENERAL INDEX 


Anthropomorphism, how far primi- 
tive, 86, 206 sg.; and _ idols, 
211; reaction against, 528; 
and theriomorphism, xxxix, 540 
sq., 047, 624 sq., 629, 669 sq. 

Antioch, anniversary at, 376 

Aparchai, payment of, 278; to 
preserve continuity, 584 

Aphaca, pool of, 107, 175, 178, 375, 
536 

Aphrodite, Cyprian, 
sheep to, 406, 469 

Apis, Calf-god, 302 

Apollo Lermenus, inscription of, 454 

Apollo Lycius, 226 

‘Ar, Arabic, 692 

Arabia, its primitiveness, 495 sqq. ; 
its primitive language, 498 sq. ; 
break up of older religion, 46, 71, 
258, 462,498; agriculture in, 109; 
fundamental type of sacrifice in, 
338 sqq. ; sacred tracts in, 142 s¢q., 
156 sqq.; temples in, 112; com- 
merce of, 71, 109; taxation in, 
458 sqq. 

‘Arafa, prayer at, 111, 276; wocuf 
at, 342 

Ares, sacred river, 170 

Artel, 488 sq. 

‘Arik, Arabic, 448 

Aristocracy and kingship, 73 

Arkhe (Greek), xlix, 584 n. 3, 657 
Dod 

Artemis Munychia, 306 

Artemis Orthia, 321 sq. 

Article, use of, in Hebrew, 126 

Aryans, the, 31 sq., 49, 194, 541 n. 

Asbamean lake, 180. 182 

Asceticism, late Semitic, 303 

Asclepiades, 308 

Asclepius, sacred river, 170 

Asdak, 659 sqq. 

Asham, 216, 399 sqq. 

Asherah, 187 sqq., 191, 560 sqq. 

Ashes, lustrations with, 382; oath 
by, 479 

Ash(i)rat, 561 

Ashteroth Karnaim, 310, 602; ‘‘ A. 
of the sheep,” 310, 477, 603 

Ass, wild, sacred, 468 sq., 690; 
firstling, 463 ; head of, as charm, 
468 

Asshur, deity, 92 

Assyrian conquests, their influence 
on N. Semitic religion, 35, 65, 77 
sq., 256, 258, 358, 472 

Assyrian Semites, 13 


sacrifice of 


Astarte, goddess of herds and flocks 
310, 355; as Cyprian Aphrodite, 
470 ; of Eryx, 471 ; her sacrifices, 
471 ; various types of, 477 ; bear- 
ded, 478. See Asherah, 561 sq. 

Astral deities, as rain-givers, 107 ; 
worship of, 135; astral cults, 
541 sg. ; symbols, 675 

‘Asur, Hebrew, 456. See Mo‘sir 

Asylum, right of, 77, 148, 160 szq., 
543 sq. 

Atad, 191 

‘Atair, pl. of ‘Attra, q.v. 

Atargatis, 172 sqq. 

Atar-samain, deity and tribe, 509 

‘Athari (Land of ‘Athtar), 99 

Athene, cult of, 520 

‘Athtar, South Arabian god, 59, 94, 
100, 466, 516 

‘Attra, Arabian sacrifice, 227 

Atonement, primitive conception of, 
as creation of a life bond, 348; 
function of, ascribed to allsacrifice, 
237; as implicit in totemism, 671; 
with one’s own blood, 337; by 
gifts, 347 sq., 396 sq.; by sub- 
stitution, 421; connection with 
idea of communion, 320, 651 ; 
day of, in Levitical law, 396 sq.. 
416, 430, 452 ; in later times, 644, 
672. See Piacula 

Atoning (piacular) sacrifices, de- 
velopment of, 353 sqq. 

‘Aud, god-name, 43 

Authority, its seat, 59 sq., 70; ideas 
of, 522 sqq. 


Baal, meaning of the word, 94 <«qq., 
533 sqq.; as efficient cause 534 ; 
house or land of, 97; as divine 
title (bal) in Arabia, 108 sq. ; 
antiquity of the name, 532 sq. 

Baal, in proper names, 94 

Baalath, 94 

Baal-berith, 95 n., 534, 667 

Baal-hamman, 94; votive cippi of, 
19], 477 sq. 

Baalim, as lords of water and givers 
of fertility, 104; as sustainers, 
534 

Baal-marcod, 95 n. 

Baal-peor, 627 

Baaras, magical plant, 442 

Babylonia and Arabia, influence of, 
498; material from, 497; in- 
habitants of mixed blood, 13 sq. 


| Babylonian New Year, 642 sq. 


; 
F 
‘ 


Se eS ae tee ee ee eee ee ee Se 


GENERAL INDEX 


703 


Betocece, 247 

Betylia, 210 

Bagradas, etymology of, 171 

Ba‘ila, Arabic, 112 n., 532 n. 5 

Ba‘l. See Baal 

Bambyce. See Hierapolis 

Ban (herem), 150, 371, 453 

Banqueting-hall, 254 

Bani Sahm, feud with the jinn, 128 

Bar-, names in, 45 

Barada, sacred river, 17] 

Barahit i in Hadramaut, 134 

Baraka, 551 n., 621 n., 644 

Barim, charm, 437 

Barkos, theophorous name, 45 

Barrenness, cure of, 514 n., 557, 568, 
690 

Batn, Arabic, 281 

Bean juice, for blood, 480 

Bed, use of, when forbidden, 484 

Bedouin religion, 71 

Beersheba, 182, 186 

** Before Yahweh,” meaning of ex- 
pression, 349, 419 n. 

Bekri cited, 145, 182 

Bel, table spread for, at Babylon, 
225; human wife for, 50, 515 

Bellona worship in Rome, 321 sq. 

Belus, sacred river, 174 

Ben-hadad, theophorous name, 45 

Berosus, legend of creation of men, 
43 ; of chaos, 89 

Bethel, 116, 205; royal chapel of, 
247 sq.; feasts at, 252; altar at, 
489 

Beth-hagla, 191 

Be‘tilah, 108 

Biblical criticism, 215 n., 574 

Birds, live, in purification, 422, 428, 
447 

Birds in sacrifice, 219 

Birth, supernatural factor in, 513 ; 
Australian theory of, 623 sq. 

Bismillah, 279, 417, 432 

Black-mail, 459 

Blood, as the life, 40, 606; as food, 
234, 379 sqq. ; drinking of, 313, 
ope L.; oss, 343, 368, 379; liba- 
tions of, 203, 230, 235; sacrificial 
use of, 233 sq. ; atoning force of, 
337; disinfectant or tonic, 651 ; 
why efficacious, 653; lustrations 
with, 344, 351, 381 ; bond of, 313 ; 
offerings of one’s own, 321; 
sprinkling of, 344, 431 ; sanctity 
of kindred, 274, 283; of gods, 
flows in sacred waters, 174; of 


bulls, superstitions about, 381; of 
the grape, 230; substitutes for, 
480; avoidance of effusion, 602 

Blood covenant, 314, 479 

Blood revenge, 32, 72, 272, 417, 420, 
462 

Blood-wit, none for slaughter within 
kin, 272 

Bond, of food, 269 sqq., 597; of 
blood, 312 sqq., 595 

Booths, at Feast of Tabernacles, 484 

Booty, law of, 637 

Boundaries, sanctity of, 561, 570 

Boys, long hair of, 329 sq. ; as exe- 
cutioners, 417 

Brahman sacrifice, 599, 650 

Brazen altar at Jerusalem, 486 

‘* Breath, life-giving,” 555, 573 

Brothers, gods as, 510 sqq.; cf. 
Introd. p. 1 note 

Buddhism, influence of, 303 n. 

Buffalo, sacred with the Todas, 299 
431 

Bull, symbolism of, 533 

Bull-roarer, 547 n., 551, 607 sq. 

Bull’s blood, superstitions about,381 

Buphonia at Athens, 304 sqq. 

Burial of sacrifices, 350, 370 
Burning, of living victims, 371, 375, 
406, 471, 632 ; of the dead, 369 

Burning bush, 193 ; cf. 562 

Burnt-offering, 418 sy.; before a 
campaign, 401 sq. See Fire Sacri- 
fices and Holocaust 

Byblus, Adonis-worship at, 329, 411, 
414; sacred erica at, 191 


C. Seealso K 

Cain, the curse of, 270 

Cainan, god-name, 43 

Cairns, sacred, 200 sqq., 570 

Cais, Arabic, 155, 170 n. 4, 558 

Caleb the dog-clan, 603, 626 

Camels, sacrificed by Arabs,218, 338; 
slaughter of, by Nilus’s Saracens, 
281 sqq.. 338 sq.; a8 food, 574 ; 
flesh of, forbidden, 283, 621; 
sacred in Arabia, 149, 156, 450, 
462, 508 

Campaign, sacrifice before, 401 sq ., 


640 
Candlestick altars, 384, 487 sq. 
Cannibalism, 317, 367, 586, 631 
Captives, sacrifice of, 37, 362 s¢q., 
491, 641 
Carmathians, portable tabernacle of, 
37 


704 GENERAL INDEX | 


Carmel, sanctity of, 156 

Carnion, or Carnaim, 310, 603 

Carob tree in modern Palestine, 192 

Carthage, deities of, 169; sacrificial 
tarifis at, 217, 237, 435; human 
sacrifice at, 363, 374, 409 

Casb, Arabic, 98 

Cathartic sacrifices, 425 sqq. 

Cattle, sanctity of, 223, 296 sq., 302, 
600 

Caus, god, 68 

Caves and pits, sacred, 197 sqq. 

Cereal offerings, wholly made over to 
the god, 236 sq., 240, 280 

Cervaria ovis, 364, 474 

Chaboras, 172, 174 

Charms. See Amulets 

Chastity, sacrifice of, 329, 611 sqq. 

Chemosh, god, 376, 460 

Cherubim, 89 

Child-gods, 520 sq. 

** Childhood of religion,”’ 257 

Children, sacrifices of, 368, 370, 410, 
630 n., 688 sg. ; ownership of, 638 

Christ, as brother, 512 n., 663, 
cf. Introd. p. lnote; baptism of, 
581; his death, 654; immanent 
in the world, 663; in Abyssinian 
names, 510 

Christianity, its interpretation of 
sacrifice, 424; appeal to the in- 
dividual, 593; its “‘ organic 
unity,” 594 

Chrysorrhoa, Damascene river-god, 
171 

Chthonic deities and demons, Semi- 
tic, 198, 566 sq. 

Church, as organic unity, 594; a 
primitive idea, 507 n. 

Churinga (Austral.), 568, 635 

Circumcision, 328, 608 sqq., 642 

Clan, sacra of, 275 sqq.; defrayed 
out of communal funds, 250 

Clean animals, 218 

Clients, worshippers as, 77 sqq., 461, 
531; stamped with patron’s camel- 
mark in Arabia, 149 

Clothes, how affected by holy con- 
tact, 451 sq. 

Clothing and rags, offerings of, 335 

Codas, Arabic, 453 

Colocasium, by river Belus, 183 

Commemorative stones, ete. See 
Memorials 

Commensality, 269 sqq., 596 sqq. 

Commerce, Arabian, 71; and re- 
ligion, 461 


Communion, and atonement, 320, 
651, see Forgiveness ; =reunion, 
666, see Unity; by eating, 
596, 599; drinking, etc., 574 sq. ; 
contact, 608, cf. 612 sqq., see 
Stroking (ritual); by Imitation 
(q.v.); idea of communion in 
ancient sacrifice, 240, 396, 439; 
implicit, in totemism, 671 ; spirit- 
ual aspect, 593, 681 sq., cf. xxxiv ; 
criticisms of the theory, xlii sqq. 

Communism, theoretical, 637 

Communities, structure of antique, 
32 sqq. See Groups, Systems 

Compromise, in religion, 528 

Coney (hyrax), among Arabs of Sinai, 
88, 444 

Confession, 646 

Consciousness, growth of, 257 

Consecration, ritual of, 206, 572 

Continence. See Chastity, Sexual 
intercourse 

Contrition, ritual expression of, 
430 

Coran, Sura vi. 137 explained, 110 

Cosmopolitan religion, 472 

Covenant, —people, 665; by food, 
269. sqq.; by sacrifice, 318; of 
Yahweh and Israel, 318 sq., 593; 
ritual forms in, 314, 479 sqq.; 
ceremonies, 315 sqq.; two types, 
619 sg.; and reunion, 665; gods 
of, 534. 

Cow, not eaten in Libya, Egypt, and 
Phoenicia, 298, 302. See Cattle 

Cow-Astarte, 310 

Cozah, 558; fire of, at Mozdalifa 
342, 490 

Creation, ideas of, 513, 518 

‘“‘ Creative’ ideas, xlvi, xlix, 653, 
cf. 499 

Cremation, 372 sq. 

Cup of consolation, 323 

Curse, mechanical operation of, 164, 
555 

‘* Cut off ” =outlawry, 162 n. 

Cynosarges, at Athens, 292 

Cyprus, piacular sacrifice in, 406, 
469 


Dagan, Dagon, 578 

Dance, sacrificial, 432 

Daphne, 148, 173; oracle of, 178, 
sacred cypresses at, 186 

David and Ahimelech, 455 

David and Jonathan, 335 

Day of Atonement, 396 sq., 411, 416 


eee Pa Re ee a 


/ oe 
wae eee 


GENERAL INDEX 


Dead, disposal of the, 369, 547; fear 
of, 323, 370; appeal to, 545, 605 ; 
eating of, 631 

Dead, drink-offerings to the, 235, 
580; meals for or before, 596 

Death of the gods, 370 n. 3, 373 sq., 
414 sq. 

Deborah, palm of, 196 

Decollati, cult of, 528 

De-divinisation, 546 

Deer, sacrifice of, alluded to in 
David's dirge, 467 ; annual sacri- 
fice of, at Laodicea, 390, 466 

** Defile hands,” 426, 452, 654 

Defloration, ceremonial, 616, 689 

Degradation of sacrifices, 354 

Delphi, hair-offering at, 325 

Demoniac plants, 442 

Demons, how distinguished from 
gods, 119 sqq., 538 sqg.; men 
descended from, 50; _ serpent, 
120, 183; in springs, 168, 172, 
557 sq. See Jinn 

Deutero-Isaiah, period of, 629 

Deuteronomic reformation, 54.6, 625 

Deuteronomy, law of, 215 n., 238, 
248 sqq., 319, 593; the tithe, 249 


Sq. 

Dhat anwat, 185 sq., 335 

Diadem, original significance of, 
483 

Dibs, or grape honey, 221 

Dido, 374, 410 

Diipolia (Biphonia), 304 sqq. 

Diké, 656 

Dionysus, dvOpwiroppaicrns, 305; and 
the Queen-Archon, 514; Semitic 
gods identified with, 193, 262, 
457. See Dusares 

Divine food, 597 

Déd, 559 

Dog, sanctity of, 392, 621; shrine 
of, 540 n., 560; as mystic sacri- 
fice, 291, 626; ‘“‘hire of,” 612; 
meaning of kalb, 596. See Hecate 

Dogma, wanting in ancient religions, 
16 sq., 422 

Domestic animals, sanctity of, 296 
8qq., 346, 355, 463, 600 ; domestica- 
tion of animals, and totemism, 
601 

Dough offerings, 225, 240 

Dove, forbidden food, 219, 294; 
sacred to Astarte, 7b. ; at Mecca, 
225, 578; sacrificed, 219, 294 

Drago wells, 172, 558 

Dress.nSee Garm ents 


45 


705 


Duma (Dimat al-Jandal), 205; 
annual human sacrifice at, 370, 
409, 633 

Dumetha. See Duma 

Dung as a charm, 382 

Dusares, Wine-god (identified with 
Dionysus), 193, 261, 520, 536 n., 
575, 603 sq.; pool of, 168, 179; 
rock of, 210 


Kagle. See Vulture 

Earth. See Mother Karth 

Easter rites, 597, 642 

Hating, of idols, 225 n., 411 n. ; of 
totems, 598; efficacy of sacred 
meal, 599 

Hbed-, in proper names, 42, 68, 
69 


Kestatic states, 554, 574 sq. 

Eden, garden of, 104, 307 

Edessa, sacred fish at, 176 

Edom, god-name, 42 

Effigy, god burned in, 373; substi- 
tuted for victim, 410 sq. 

Egypt, sacred animals in, 225 sq., 
301, 539, 578 sq., 626 ; vegetarian- 
ism in, 301 

El, 530, 533, 551 

El(a)gabalus, 570 

Elam (Susiana), not Sémitic, 6 

Elders, the council of, 33; slay the 
sacrifice, 417; authority of, among 
primitive peoples, 523 sq. 

Elephantine, name-giving at, 510; 
symposia at, 628 

Elijah, at Carmel, 582 ; Festival of, 
156 

Elohim, original sense of, 445, 686 

E] Shaddai, 570 n. 

Elusa, worship of Lat at, 57 

Emim, 566 

En-rogel, 172, 489 

Ephea, fountain at Palmyra, 168 

Epic poetry, wanting among the 
Semites, 49 

Erica, sacred at Byblus, 191, 226 n. 

Eridu, sacred garments of, 674 

Eryx, sanctuary of, 294, 305 n., 309, 
471; sacrifice to Astarte at, 309 

Esar, Hebrew, 481 

Esau, the huntsman, 467; a divine 
name, 508 sq. 

Eshmun-lolaos, 469, 690 sq. 

Essenes, 303 

Ethical ideas, 53 sq., 58, 265 sqq., 
319, 429, 645 sq.; due to in- 
dividuals, 670 


706 GENERAL INDEX 


Ethkashshaph, “‘ make supplication,” 
321, 337, 604 

Ethrog, 221 n. 

Etiquette, sacred, 158 

Eucharist, an Aztec parallel, 597 ; 
and the Mysteries, 599 

Kuchitz, 689 n. 

Euhemerism, 43, 467, 544 

Euphrates, sacred river, 172, 183, 
558 

Kuropa, identified with Astarte, 310 

Eve, the name, 567 

Kvil, =sin, etc., 645 sq. ; expulsion 
of, 647 

Evolution, in religion, etc., 499, 540, 
585, 599, 624 n., 625, 669, 682 sq. ; 
‘‘ primary’ or inaugural stages, 
499, 543, see Creative Ideas ; 
‘secondary ”’ stages, 543, 549, 553, 
572, see xlviii sqq. 

Executions, analogy to sacrifice, 
284 sq., 305, 370 sq., 417 sqq. 

Exile, age of reconstruction, 592 sq. ; 
age of mystic cults, 622, 628 sq. 

Exorcism, 428 

Expiation, Jewish Day of, 430 

Eyebrows, shaving of, 331 n., 619 

Ezrah, free tribesman, 75 


** Face, see the,’ 643 

Fairs, 187 n., 461 

Fall, the, in Hebrew story, 307; 
in Greek, 307 sq. ; psychology of, 
liti 

Family (Heb. mishpahah), 254, 276 

Family meal, 275 sq. 

Fara‘, firstling 228, 368, 462, 579 

Fasting, original meaning of, 434, 
673 


Fat, of intestines, forbidden food, 
238; of kidneys, 379; burning of 
the, 379; as a charm, 383 

Fate, ideas of, 509 n. 3, 659; Tab- 
lets of, 643 sq. 

Father, authority of, 60 n.; is 
reborn in child, 688 sq. 

Fatherhood, divine, 40 sqq., 509 sq. ; 
in heathen religions is ‘“* physical ’ 
fatherhood, 41 sqq., 50, 511; in 
the Bible, 41 

Fear of the dead, 323, 370, 605 

Fear in religion, 54, 123 sq., 136, 154, 
395, 519 sq., 540, 549, 588 

Fellowship, by eating together, 264 
sq. See Commensality 

Ferments in sacrifice, 220 sq., 387, 
485 


Festivals, sacrificial, 252 sqq. 

Fetichism, sacred stones and, 209, 
568 

Fiction in ritual, 364 

Fines in ancient law, 347, 397; at 
the sanctuary, 347 

Fire, a purifying agent, 632, 647 

Fire sacrifices, 217, 236 sq. ; develop- 
ment of, 371 sq., 385 sq. 

First, the, efficacy of, 464 sq., 584 ; 
why preserved, 586; sanctity of 
firstborn, 465, 617; sacrifice of 
firstborn, 688 sq. 

Firstfruits, 240 sqq., 463, 583 sqq. 

Firstlings, sacrifice of, 464 sq., 688 
sgq. ; in Arabia, 111, 228, 450 sq., 
458 sqq. . 

Fish, sacred, at Ascalon, 173; at 
Hierapolis, 175; at Edessa, 176, 
558; mystic sacrifice of, 292 ; 
forbidden food, 449, 477 

Fish oracles, 178 

Fish-skin, ministrant clad in, 292, 
437 

Flagellation, 328, 607 sq. 

Flesh, laceration of, in worship, 321 ; 
eaten with blood, 342 ; means kin, 
274; as food, 222,300; when first 
eaten by the Hebrews, 307; of 
corpse as charm, 323 

Flood legend, at Gezer, 567; at 
Hierapolis, 199, 457 

Food, in religion, 600, 628; vehicle 
of life, 313; its “‘ soul,’ 596; food- 
gods, 578, 597 sq., 662 ; economic 
guilds, 628; bond’ of food, 269 
8qq. 

Foreign rites, atonement by, 360 

Forgiveness, not subjective, 604, 
671 

Foundation tablets, 569, 583; 
foundation sacrifices, 159, 376, 
410, 467, 632 sq. 

Fountains, sacred, 
Springs, Waters 

Frankincense, sanctity of, 427, 455 

Fringes of garments, 437 

Fruit, offered in sacrifice, 222 ; “‘ un- 
circumcised,” 463; juice of, in 
ritual, 480 

Fumigation, 158, 426, 455 

Funeral customs, 322 sq., 336, 370 

Fusion of religious communities, 38 


169 sqq. See 


Gad, tribe, =god, 506, 509, 547, 662 
Gallas, form of covenant among, 
296 


Pe eee ee ee ee eee ee 


, ey 


. 
Ce Se ne Pe 


GENERAL INDEX 


Galli at Hierapolis, 321 

Game, protected at ancient sanctu- 
aries, 160; as food, 222 ; in sacri- 
fice, 218 

Garments, covenant by exchange of, 
335; sacred, 437 sqg., 451 sqq., 
674 sq. ; ritually torn, 687 

Gazelle, sacrifice of, 218; 
444, 466, 468 

Gebal, 570 

Genius and Baal, 534, 603 

Gentile sacrifice, 276 

Ger, or client, 75 sq.; in proper 
names, 79, 531 

Gezer, flood-legend, 567; pillars at, 
571, 688; infant-burials, 689 ; 
figurines, 633 

Ghabghab, 198, 228, 339 sq., 341 n. 

Gharcad tree, oracle from, 133, 195 

Ghariy (‘‘ bedaubed ’’ stone), 157, 
201, 210 

Ghil (Ghoul), 129 

Gibeonites, 271, 421 

Gift theory of sacrifice, its inade- 
quacy, xlii sq., 385, 390 sqq., 681 

Gifts, ancient use of, 346, 458 sq. ; 
as homage, 346 sq., 461; as pia- 
cula, 397; their spiritual equiva- 
lent, 681 

Gihon, fountain of, 172, 489 

Gilgal, twelve sacred pillars 
211 

Gilgamesh, 50, 546, 601 

Girdle, Elijah’s, 438 

Gloomy types of religion, 394, 414 
sq., 588 sq., 646 

Goat in sacrifice, 218, 467, 472 

Goddesses, general character, 510 ; 
prominence, 521; change sex, 
516; are married, 514 sqq. 

Gods, nature of the, 22 sqq. ; father- 
hood of, 40 sqqg.; kinship with 
men, 46 sgqg. ; power of, how lim- 
ited, 81 sqg.; not omnipresent, 

_ 207; viewed as a part of nature, 
84; physical affinities of, 90 sq. ; 
local] relations of, 92, 112; eating 
of the, 225 n.; death of the, 410, 
414 sq. ; take part in war, 37, 641 ; 
as causes, 527, 534. 638; are 
threatened, 564 

Golden Age, legend of, 300, 303, 307, 
576, 601 

Grape, blood of the, 230, 579 sq. 

Great Mother, divine title, 56 

Greeks and Semites, 11, 31, 34 s¢q., 
13, 75 


sacred, 


at, 


107 


Groups, 503 sqq.; unity of senti- 
ment, etc., 505; social custom, 
522 sq.; system of restrictions, 
637; and individuals, 590 sqq. ; 
rights of individuals, 637; dis- 
integration and reintegration, 594 ; 
group religion, 61, 253, 265, 589 ; 
the group-life, 506, 547; group 
‘‘ righteousness,” 660 ; group sanc- 
tity, 549; the group-god 669, 682 
(see Gad); and his immanence, 
565, 662 (see Supreme Gods) 

Groves at sanctuaries, 173, 
560 

Gudea of Lagash, 592 

Guilds, 626, 628 


186, 


Hadad, 533, 545, 641, 661 

Hadramaut, were-wolves in, 88; 
volcanic phenomena in, 134; 
witches in, 179 

Hadran, god, 292 

Hair, cut off in mourning, 323 sqq. ; 
superstitions connected with, 324, 
607; as initiatory offering, 327 ; 
in vows and pilgrimages, 331, 481, 
618 

Haris, Arabic, 225 

Halac, epithet of death, 324 

Halla, Arabic, 577 * 

Halla, Arabic, 482 

Hallel, 340, 431 

Hamath, etymology of, 150 n., cf. 
542 

Hammurabi, code of, 499, 522. 530, 
558, 655, 659, 672 

Hamor, Canaanite name, 468 

Hanash, creeping things, 128, 130, 
293 

Hanging, sacrifice by, 370 sq. 

Hannibal, oath of, 169 

Haoma, 379, 381 

Haram of Mecca, 142 

Harb b. Omayya, slain by the Jinn, 
133 

Hare, 129, 133, 672 n. 

Harith, B., and_ gazelle, 
466 

Harlotry and apostasy, 616 

Harranians, sacrifices of, 290, 299, 
343; 348,-351,. 368,470; -cere- 
monial dress, 674 

Hasan and Hosain, 321, 557, 604 

Hattath, 216, 399 sqq. 

Hauf, Arabic, 437 

Hawwat, 567 

Hayy, Arabic, 281, 506 


444, 


708 GENERAL INDEX 


Head, of the victim, not eaten, 379 ; 
eaten, 406 n.; used as charm, 
382, 468; washing and anointing 
of, 485 

Hecate, etymology of, 290, 596; 
her dog, 351, 567, 596 

Heliopolis (Baalbek), 444, 616 

Hera, sacrifice of goat to, 305 

Heracles, as huntsman, 292 ; at Tar- 
sus, 373; and the Hydra, 183; 
of Sanbulos, 50; pillars of, 211 ; 
‘at Daphne, 178, 186, 192; resur- 
rection of, 469, 690; Tyrian, see 
Melecarth 

Herem (ban), 150, 370, 453, 641 

Hermaphroditus, 478 

Hermon, sanctity of, 94, 155, 446 

Hésed, 660 

Hiel, foundation sacrifice, 633 

Hierapolis, pilgrimage centre, 80; 
sacred fish at, 174,175; sacrificial 
animals at, 218; pyre-sacrifice in 
middle of temple court, 378; holo- 
causts suspended and burnt alive 
at, 371, 375, 406, 418, 471 ; pre- 
cipitation at, 371, 418; sacrificial 
dress at, 438, 474 

High places, 171, 489 

Hike (Egypt), 551 

Hillah panim, 346 n. 

Hillilim, 221, 577 

Hima, or sacred tract in Arabia, 112, 
144 sq., 156 sq. ; of Taif, 142 

Hinnom, valley of, 372 

Hip-sinew, 380 n., 671 sq. 

Hodaibiya, well at, 185 

Holiness, ideas of, 141, 288, 548 
sqq.; primitive ideas not neces- 
sarily unethical, 645 sg., 679; of 
regions, 142; of animals, 390; 
relations of, to the idea of pro- 
perty, 142 sq., 390 sq.; rules of, 
148 sqq. ; Semitic roots denoting, 
150; relation to uncleanness, 425, 
446, 548; to taboo, 152, 390, 446 
sqq., 552; contagious, 450 sqq. ; 
congenital, 464 sq. See Holy 

Holocaust, origin of, 371, 386; rare 
in ancient times, 237 sq., 375, 406, 
47] 

Holy, meaning of the word, 91, 
140 sqg. See Holiness 

Holy Fire, ceremony of, 652 n. 

Holy places, 116 sqq. ; origin of, 136, 
150; waters, 166 sq.; caves, 197 
sqq. ; stones, 200 sqq.; trees, 185 
sqq. ; older than temples, 118 


Holy things, intrinsic power to vin- 
dicate themselves, 162 

Homeric poems, religious importance 
of, 31 

Homs, religious community at Mecca, 
451 

Honey, excluded from altar, 221 ; in 
Greek sacrifice, 220 ; and milk, 576 

Horeb, Mount, 155 

Horns, symbol, 478; of the altar, 
341, 436 

Horse as sacred animal, 293, 469 

Hosain. See Hasan 

Hospitality, law of, 76; in Arabia, 
269; at sacrificial feasts, 253, 265, 
284, 458 

House of Baal, 96 sq. 

Household gods, 208 sq., 461 

House-tops, worship on, 230. See 
Root 

Human blood, superstitions about, 
369, 417 

Human sacrifice, 361 sqq., 366, 409, 
466, 630 sq. ; origin of holocaust, 
386 

Husbands, of land or people, 536 sq., 
616; gods as, 513 sqq., 617; of 
goddesses, 516 

Hyena, superstitions about, 129, 133 

Hydrophobia, cured by kings’ blood, 
369 

Hypothesis, test of, 404 


Ibn al-Athir quoted, 412 

Ibn Mojawir quoted, 444, 466 

Ibn Tofail, grave of, 156 

Identification. See Imitation 

Identity of man and animals, 538 
n. 3; man and totem, 677 

Idhkhir, Arabic, 142 

‘Idhy, Arabic, 98 

Idols, not necessarily simulacra, 207; 
origin of anthropomorphic, 211 ; 
in animal form, 310; in form of 
cone, 208 ; of paste in Arabia, 225 

Ifada, 342 

Thram, 333, 484 

Ijaza, 277, 341 sq. 

Ikhnaton (Amenhotep Iv.), 545, 561, 
659, 677 

Llal, place, 342 

Images, graven, prohibition of, 204; 
their consecration, 572 

Imitation ritual, 325 n., 549, 601, 
607, 619, 639, 663, 672, 674 sq. ; 
implies a communion, 675; 
practical effect, 663, 676 


GENERAL INDEX 


709 


Immanence, 563 sqg.; in Semitic 
religion, 194; immanent powers 
in trees, 194; earth, 518; water, 
556 sq., 566; tombs, 544; curses 
and ordeals, etc., 555, 559; 
taboos, 162 sq., 523, 548, 550; in 
society, 523; in the cosmos, 638, 
656 sqq. See Transcendence 

Imposition of hands, 239, 354, 
422 

Impurity, 158, 428, 447. See Un- 
cleanness 

Imraulcais, anecdote of, 47 

Inaugural rites, 577, 632. 
Foundation Sacrifices 

Incense, used in purification, 426; 
tithes of, 247; burning of, 490 

Incest, 163 n., 506 n., 586 

Individual, type of religion, 668 sq. ; 
property rights, 635 sqq.; and 
the group, 55, 258 sq., 263 sqq., 
590 sqq., cf. li; influence on rudi- 
mentary religion, 670, cf. liv; 
growth of individualism, 507, 592, 
626, 683 

Infanticide, 370, 407, 418, 688 sq. 

Initiation ceremonies, 327, 358 sq., 

_ 607 sq. 

Tolaos, 469 

Iphigenia, sacrifice of, 403 

Isaac, sacrifice of, 309; blessing of, 
467 

Ischiac, in Syrian magic, 442 

Ishtar, mother goddess, 56 sqq., 520 ; 
hymn of, 522, 646 n.; Ishtars, 
539 n., 603 

Isis-Hathor, Cow-goddess, 302 

Islam, meaning of, 80 

Issar, Hebrew, 481 


See 


Jachin and Boaz, 208, 488 

Jacob, hero or god, 546; his wrest- 
ling, 446, 610 ; limping, 671 

Jar, Arabic, 75 

Jealousy, of the deity, 157, 162 ; 
water of, 180, 558 

Jehovah. See Yahweh 

Jehozadak, the name, 660, 662 n. 

Jephthah’s daughter, 416 

Jerusalem, altar at, 485; centre of 
religion, 662 n., 669 

Jesus in Manicheism, etc., 597, 
663; “‘ power of Jesus,” 551 n. 
See Christ 

Jewels, sacred use of, 453 sq. 

Jewish theology on atonement, 424, 
673 


Jinn (Arabian demons, not a loan 
word, 446), 119 sqq., 441, 514, 
538; have no individuality, 120, 
445, 539; akin to wild beasts, 
121 sqq.; at feud with men, 121 ; 
intermarry with men, 50 n., 514 ; 
haunts of, 132 ; sacrifices to, 139 ; 
jinn and totemism, 538 sqq. 

Joppa, sacred fountain at, 174 

Joyous types of religion, 258 sqq., 
394, 589 sq. 

Judas Iscariot, 652 n. 

“* Judge,”’ a “‘ deliverer,” 661 

Julian, 290, 371 

Jus prime noctis, 615 sq. 

Justice, divine, and piacula, 423 sqq. 


K. For names in K, see also C 

Kadesh, fountain of, 181, 210 

Kedéshim (-6th), 553, 612, 617, 679, 
689 

Khalaga, place, 57 

Khalaga (Kholasa), deity, 225 

Khilb, Arabic, 379 

Khors, Arabic, 492 

Kid in mother’s milk, 221, 576 

Kidney fat, ideas about, 379 sqq. 

Kin, the oldest circle of moral obliga- 
tion, 272; how conceived, 273. 
See Kinship f 

‘** Kin ” and “ kind,”’ 660 

Kings, blood of, superstition about, 
369, 418; as causes of fer- 
tility, etc., 534, 537, 582; are 
ritually slain, 621 ; atoning cere- 
monies, 650; subordinate to gods, 
545, 684; gods as, 44, 75; as the 
individuals, 591 ; cosmic meaning, 
653 

Kingship, Semitic, origin of, 33 sq. ; 
character of, 62 ; as a social force, 
73; not feudal, 92; divine, 62 
sqq., 545, 684 

Kinship, is “ psychical,” 319, 505 
sq., 667; wide use of terms, 511 ; 
of gods and men, 41 sq., 54, 90, 
287, 509 sqg.; how acquired and 
maintained, 273 sqqg. ; of gods and 
animals, 87, 288, 289; of families 
of men and families of beasts, see 
Totemism ; among beasts, 127; 
sanctity of, 289, 400, 549; food 
and, 269 

Kishon, etymology of, 170 

Kissing, ritual, 571 

Kittér, “ burn flesh,” 490 

Kudurrus (Bab.), 569, 688 


710 GENERAL INDEX 


Laceration of flesh in mourning, 
322 ; ritual, 321 

Lahm (flesh), 274, 578, 595 

Land, property in, 104, 636; Baal’s, 
95 sqq.; the god’s, 96 sq., 536, 636 

Language, how far a criterion of race, 
6 sqq. 

Laodicea ad Mare, 409 sq., 416, 466 
sq. 

Lapis pertusus at Jerusalem, 232 

Lat (Al-). See Allat 

Leah, 603 

Leaven, excluded from altar, 220 

Leavened bread, offered on altar. 
220, 242 

Lectisternia, 225 sqq. 

Lemon-grass at Mecca, 142 

Leper, cleansing of, 344, 422, 447 

Leucadian promontory, 373, 418 

Leviathan, personification of water- 
spout, 176 

Levitical sacrifices, 215 sqq., 350, 
423 

Leviticus, Book of, not pre-exilic, 
216 

Libations, 229 sqq., 580 

Libyans, sacrifice without bloodshed, 
431 ; sacred dress among, 437 

Life, concrete ideas of, 555 

Lilith, 441 

Limping, ritual, 432, 610, 671 sq. 

Lion, ancestral god of Baalbek, 444 

Lion-godin Arabia. See Yaghuth 

Lishkah (écxn), 254, 587 

Live bird in lustrations, 422, 428, 447 

Liver, 379, 634 ; divination by, 620, 
634 

Living flesh. See Raw Flesh 

Living water. See Water 

Lizards, metamorphosed men, 88 

Lots, 559 n. 

Lucifer, 57, 166, 282, 545 

Lud (Lydia), not Semitic, 6, 495 

Lupercalia, 479 

Luperci, the, 437 n. 

Lustrations, with blood, 344, 351, 
381 ; with ashes, 382 ; sacrificial, 
425 sqq. i 

Lycurgus, 575 

Lydus, 236, 291, 406; De Mens. 
iv. 45, emended, 473 sqq., 691 


Ma‘at, Egyptian goddess of “‘truth,”’ 
572, 656, 658 sq. 

Madar, Arabic, 112 

Madhbah, Arabic, 341 

Magic, 55, 58, 90, 154; contrasted 


with religion, 552 ; is secondary, 
692; anti-social, 264; Semitic, 
442 

‘* Magico-religious,’ the 552, 598, 
604, 614, 618, 639 sq., 670, 676, 
679 

Maimonides on Harranians, 343 

Make- believe in ancient religion, 364 


Sq. 

Males, holy food eaten only by, 299 

Mamre, sanctuary of, 116; sacred 
well at, 177, 182; tree at, 193; 
feast at, 452, 455 

‘‘ Man of,” in proper names, 70, 526 


Mana, 550 sqq.; and Taboo, 552, 


556, 658, 663, 671 

Manéhil, sacred trees, 185 

Mandrake, 442 

Manicheism, 599, 602 

Manna, 691 

Manslaughter, how expiated, 420 

Markets, 113 n., 187n., 461 

Marna, god, 68 n. 

Marriage of gods and men, 50, 513 
sqq., 614; of men and goddesses, 
516; communal, 613, 615 sqq. ; 
symbolism. 514, 516, 536 

‘** Mary ’’=female, 603 n. 

Marze*h, 626 sqq. 

Masai, 234, 370, 434 

Masks, religious use of, 438, 674 

Massébah, sacred stone, 203 sqq., 457 

Material, the, and spiritual, 84 sqq., 
263, 439 sq., 511, 676 sqq., 685 

Meal-offering, in Arabia, 223, 225. 
See Minhah 

Meals, sacrificial, more ancient than 
holocausts, 239 

Mecca, haram of, 142, 144, 157; 
well Zamzam at, 167; idols at, 
225; sacred circuit at, 451; 
foreign origin of cult at, 113 

Megaron, etymology of, 200, 567 

Melcarth, Tyrian Baal, 67; at Tyre, 
208; at Daphne, 178; tithes paid 
to, 246; at Amathus, 376; limp- 
ing dance to, 671; and quails, 
691. See Heracles 

Mélek, counsellor, 62 

Melek, god. See Moloch 

Memorials of the god, 194, 203 sq., 
569 sq. 

Menstruation, 
447 sq., 550 n. 

Meribah, or Kadesh, 181 

Merits, doctrine of, 661 ; of infants, 

689 


impurity of, 133, 


POP ee i, ee eS eee a ee Se 


Te 


el a 


GENERAL INDEX 


711 


Mesha, king of Moab, 36, 61 ; sacri- 
fices his son, 376; dedicates part 
of spoil to Chemosh, 4.60 

Metamorphosis, myths of, 88 sq. 

Mexican human sacrifices, 363, 367, 
516 n., 619 

Midriff, a seat of life and feeling, 379 

Mihash, Arabic, 479 

Mitha, of bond of salt, 270 

Milk, or king god, 660, 662 

Milk, main diet of pastoral nomads, 
223; in sacrifice, 221, 459; not 
sold in Arabia, 459; makes kin- 

_ ship, 274, 355, 595; is sacred, 577 

Mimosa thought to be animate, 133 

Minhah, derivation, 573; “ offer- 
ing,” or bloodless oblation, 217, 
224, 236, 240; drawn from first- 
fruits, 240 ; to whom payable, 241 

Mishna, on “‘ Baal’s field,’’ 102 

Mishpahah, Hebrew, 254, 276 

Mishpét, 656, 661 

Mit(h)ra, 534, 667 

Mizbeah, Hebrew, 341 

MLK, root, 62, 67 

Mohammed, compared with Moses, 
70, 319, 667 

Moharric, Arabian god, 364 

Mokhtar, portable sanctuary of, 37 

Moloch (Melek), 372 sqq., 394 sq.. 
465, 630, 632. See Milk 

Monajjasa, Arabic, 448 

Monotheism, alleged tendency of 
Semites towards, 74, 526, 530; 
monarchy and, 74 sq., 530 

Monsters in Semitic art, 89 

Morality and antique religion, 53, 
64, 74, 154, 263 sqq. 

Morassa‘a, charm, 437 

Morning star, worship of. See Lucifer 

Moses, circumcision-story, 609 sq. 
See Mohammed 

Mo‘sir, 448, 456 

Mother Earth, 52, 107, 517 

Mother of the gods, 56, 512, 520 

Motherhood of deities, 56 sqq. 

Mot‘im al-tair, god-name, 225 

Mourning, laceration of flesh in, 322 ; 
rending of garments in, 336; asa 
religious function, 430 n., 434, 605 

Mouse, mystic sacrifice of, 293 

** Mouth, opening of,’ 572 n. 

Mozdalifa, 342, 490 

Msa‘ide, well of, 168 

Murder, how expiated, 420; of 
animals, etc., to be avoided, 602 

Myrtle, in lustration, 475 


Mystery, Christianity why so desig- 
nated, 80 

Mystic sacrifices, 289 sqq., 343, 357 
sqq., 398 ; restricted, 599 

Mystical cults, 357 sqq., 625 sqq.; 
experiences, 548, 554, 575, 586, 
666 sq., 681, 684 

Myth, place of, in ancient religion, 
17 sqq.; derived from ritual, 18 ; 
value of, in the study of ancient 
faiths, 19, 500 sqq., 542 sq., see 
xxxiii 


Mythology, Semitic, 49 


Naev‘a, sacrifice called, 363, 491 sq., 
641 

Nadhara, Arabic, 482 

Nafs, Arabic, 40 

Naga, 619 

Nails, finger, 428 n., 434 n. 4 

Naked worshippers. See Nudity 

Nakhla, sacred acacia at, 185 

Names, animal-, 622; after grand- 
father, 45, 510; not after father, 
689 

Nar-al-hiila, 480 

Nasak, 229, 578 

Nasr, Vulture-god, 226, 579 

Nathan, proper names in, 108 

Nationality and religion, 35 sq., 72 sq. 

‘Natural’ religion, 29 sqq., 319; 
society, 666 

Nature, 537 n.; control over, 658, 
670. See Order 

Nazarite, 332, 482 

Nervus ischiadicus, 380 

New Covenant, Jeremiah’s, 593, 682 

New Year, 643 sq., 650, 674 2 

Nezer, Hebrew, 483 

Nigeria, totemism and Islam, 539, 
541 n., 631 

Nilus, 166, 227 n. 2, 281 sq., 285 sq., 
338, 345, 361, 363 sq., 559, 619, 
ef. lvi sqq. 

Nimrod, 92, 532 

Nisan, sacred month, 406 sq., 470, 
641 sgq. 

Nisibis, etymology of, 204 

Nomads, food of, 222 

Nosb, altar and idol in one, 201, 204, 
340 

Nudity, ritual, 451, 687 

** Numinous,”’ the, 554, 568 


Oath of purgation, 164, L80 sqq., 480 
Ob, Hebrew, 98 
‘Obedath, cult of, 627 


712 GENERAL INDEX 


Obed-Edom, the name, 42, 508 

Ocaisir, Arabian god, 223, 225, 229, 
Slt, aol 

Oil, in sacrifice, 232 ; sacred foun- 
tain of, 179; anointing, 582 

‘Okaz, sanctuary of, 210; fair of, 
461 

?OndoAvy7, 431, 606 

Ombos and Tentyra, feuds of, 31 

Omens from animals, 443 

Omm ‘Oncdd, 412, 414 

Onias, his prayer for rain, 563, 581 

Oracles, from trees, 133, 194; at 
wells, 177 sq. ; from fish, 178 

Ordeals by water, 178 sq., 558 

Order, general ideas of, 656 sqq.; of 
nature and society, 537, 654, 663, 
654. 

Orestes, wanderings of, 360 

Orgiastic element in ancient religion, 
261 sqq. 

Orgies of the Arabian Venus, 363 

** Origins,” 497, 599 

Ornaments, offerings of, 335 sq. 

Orontes, legends of, 171 sq., 175 sq. 

Orotal, 316, 325, 330, 520, 603, 607, 
667 

Orwa, holy well of, 168 

Osiris, as a life-principle, 597, 650 

‘Otfa, Bedouin, 37, 508 

Outlawry, 60 sq., 163 n., 256, 359 sq. 

Ownership, ideas of. See Baal, 
Property 

Ox, in sacrifice, 218; sacredness of, 
298; in Greece, 304. See Bi- 
phonia, Cattle, Murder 

al-‘Ozza, 57 n., 185, 210, 466, 521 


Palici, lake of, 178, 180 

Pallades, the, 612 

Palmetum, water at the, 167 

Palm-tree, sacred, at Nejran, 185 

Palmyra, fountain of Ephea at, 168 

Panammu, inscription of, 545 

Paneas, grotto of, 171, 183 

Pan-Hellenic ideas, 31 

Pantheism, 131, 518 n., 566 

Pantheon, Semitic, 39 

Parallelism of social and natural 
order, 663 

Parricides, punishment of, 418 

Particularism of ancient Semitic re- 
ligion, 35 sqq., 53 

Passover, antiquity of ritual of, 406 ; 
sacrifice of firstlings, 464; not 
originally a household sacrifice, 
280, 464; Arabian equivalent of, 


227; blood-sprinkling in, 344, 
431, cf. 337; leaven in, 221; haste 
in, 245; bones not to be broken, 
345; in Book of Jubilees, 652 
n. 4; and circumcision, 609 sq. 

Pastoral religion, 38 n., 297, 355 

Pasture land, tax on, 246 

Patron. See Client 

Pearls (kadis), 453 n. 

Pegai, Damascene river-god, 171 

Pegasus, 294 

Pentateuch, composition of, 215, 574 

Perfume, holiness of, 453 

Periander and Melissa, story of, 236 

Personality, ideas of, 547 sq., 684 

Personification, 527 

Petra, worship of Allat at, 56 sq., 520 

Phallic symbols, 211, 456, 687 sq. 

Philistines, origin of, 10 

Philo Byblius, cosmogony of, 43 ; on 
Canaanite plant-worship, 186, 308 
on rod and pillar worship, 196, 
203 ; on legend of Uséus, 467 

Pheenicians, influence in the West, 
495; salutation, 68 n. 3, 526; 
deluge myth, 601 

Physical, the, and spiritual, 430, 435, 
437, 439, 618, 634, 638 sq., 661, 
673 sqq. 

Piacula, special, their origin and 
meaning, 397, 399; annual, 405 ; 
Greek and Roman, 350  sq.; 
Levitical, 325, 348, 423 ; at open- 
ing of campaign, 401 

Piacular rites, distinctive characters 
of, 398 sq. ; interpretation of, 399; 
antique features in, how pre- 
served, 400 sqq.; not originally 
sin-offerings, 401 sq. 

Piggtlim, 343 

Pilgrimage, based on clientship and 
voluntary homage, 80; in Arabia, 
109 sqq. ; a bond of religious union 
under Islam, 276 sq. ; hair-offering 
in connection with, 331, 483 sq. ; 
taboos incidental to, 481 sqq. ; 
dress worn in, 485 

Pillar altars, 188, 487 sqq. 

Pillars, sacred, 203 sqq.. 456 sqq., 
487 

Pillars, twin, as symbols, 438; at 
Paphos, Hierapolis, Jerusalem, 
208 

Pit under an altar, 197, 228, 340 

Plautus, Penulus, cited, 526 

Plural term for god, 686 

Pole, sacred, 190 


3 

. 
& 
Bt 
’ 
3 
q 


GENERAL INDEX 


713 


Polyandry, 58 sq., 610 sq.- 

Portable sanctuaries, 37, 508 

Post-exilic religion, 215, 574, 593, 
618, 664, 680 sq. 

Practical element in religion, xxxvi 
sq., Xli sq., 552, 676 sq. 

Pray, words for, 604 

Prayer, element of compulsion, 563 

Precipice, captives thrown from, 
371, 418 sq. 

Priesthoods, hereditary, 47, 79 

Priestly legislation, 350 

Priests, share of, in holocausts and 
sin-offerings, 349 sq., 435 n., 673 ; 
in communal holocausts, slay 
victim, 417 

*“* Primitive,” 498 sq. 

Production and ownership, 638 sq. 

Progress, no idea of, 649 

Proper names, theophorous, 42, 45 
sq., 67 sq., 79, 108 sq. 

Property, 112, 150, 159 sq., 385, 461 ; 
in land, 95; in water, 104; and 
idea of holiness, 142 sqq., 449, 
548; notion of, introduced into 
religion, 390 sq¢., 395; general 
ideas of, 583, 635 sqq. 

Prophets, teaching of, 61, 66, 74 sq., 
Sip i217, 140, 163'n-,.194, 319 -n., 
429 sq., 528, 561, 565, 617 s¢., 
664, cf. xxxvi sqq. 

Providence of the gods, 64; 
personal in heathenism, 264 

Public opinion, 60, 163, 522 

Public parks, sanctuaries as, 147 

Punishment, 389, 420, 424 

Purification, by sacrifice, 425 sq. ; by 
bathing, 168, 184, 351, 427 

Purity of sacrificer and victim, 620 

“ Pyramid Texts”? of Egypt, 512, 
545, 632 

Pyre-festival 
Hierapolis 


not 


at Hierapolis. See 


Quail, sacrifice of, 219, 469, 690 sq. 
** Quarries,”’ stone idols, 211 
Queen of heaven, 189, 509 


Rab, Rabbath, Rabbi, divine titles, 
68, 70 

Rachel, “‘ the ewe,” 311 n., 603 

Rag-offerings, 335 

Raht, Arabic, 437 

Rain, charms, 231 sq., 580 sq. ; de- 
creed at New Year, 644; makers 
of, 582; deities as givers of, 107, 
eel 


Rajab, sacrificial month, 227, 406, 
462, 465, 642 

Ram, as a sin-offering, 475 sq. 

Ransom, 424, 648 

Raw or living flesh, 338 sq., 341, 385, 
387, 541, 619 

Re, Egyptian god of justice, 658 sq. 

Realism of primitive religion, 676 sq. 

Rebirth, 608, 620, 649, 677; of 
year, etc., 650 

Rechabites, 485 

Re-creation, 650 

Red heifer, 351, 354, 376 

Reforming movements, 528 sq., 546, 
574. 

Regions, holy, 115, 142 sqq. 

Xelics worn as charms, 336 

Religion, Durkheim’s definition, 507 
n. | ; contrasted with magic, 505, 
552 (see Magic) 

Religion, positive and traditional, 
1 sq. ; hereditary, 30, 38 ; relation 
between Hebrew and Canaanite, 4; 
development of, in Kast and West, 
contrasted, 35 sq. ; oldest form is 
religion of kinship, 51 sqq. 

Religion, ancient, and natural soci- 
ety, 29 sqq. ; national character of, 
35; a part of public life, 22, 29; 
ethical value of, 265 sq. ; make- 
believe in, 364 sg. ; materialistic 
but not selfish, 263 ; offers no con- 
solation to private suffering, 
259; habitually joyous, 260. See 
Gloomy Types 

Religous and political institutions, 
analogy of, 20; beliefs, persistency 
of, 355; restrictions, moral value 
of, 155; historiography, law of, 
525; communities, structure of, 
29 sqq., 276 sq. ; fusion of, 39 

Renan quoted, 54, 197 . 

Repentance, 604, 649 

Rephaim, 566 

Representatives of god or group, 
416, 565, 591 

Resurrection, 414, 555; of Heracles, 
469, 690 

Revealer, tree of the, 196 

Rhabdomancy, 196 

Right, secular ideas of, 522 

Righteousness, ideas of, 600, 655 
sqq.; the prophets’ teaching of, 
61, 74, 81, 429 

Rights, 661 ; of property, 637 

Rinnah (Heb.), 432 

Rita, ‘‘ order,’ 656 sq., 662 


714 GENERAL INDEX 


Ritual, interpretation of, 16. s¢., 
399 ; and myth, 18, 500 sqq. ; and 
social religion, 502 

Rivers, sacred, 155, 169 sqq., 558 

Robb, fruit juice, 480 

Robe of Righteousness, 438 

Rock of Israel, 210 

Rocks in situ, seldom worshipped, 
209 sq. 

Rod-worship, 196 sq., 566 

Roof cults, 230 n. 4, 544, 580 


Sacra gentilicia, 275 

Sacramental meal, 225, 295, 405, 
586, 596 sqq. 

Sacred, ideas of, see Holy; regions, 
115, 142 sqq. 

Sacrifice (sacrificiwm, tepovpyia), 213 
sq.; terminology, 213 sq., 216, 
237, 573 

Sacrifice, material of, 218 sqqg.; clean 
animals, 218; unclean animals, 
289 sqq.; meal, 236; wine, 220, 
230; oil, 232; salt, 220, 270; 
leaven, 220; milk, 459; honey, 
221; fruit, 220; human beings, 
361 sqq. 

Sacrifice, how offered :—byexposure, 
225; by precipitation, 371; by 
pouring, 229 sqq.; by burying, 
114, 370; by shedding of blood, 
233; by burning, 217, 335 sqq., 
371, 385, 388 ; by hanging, 370 sq. 

Sacrifice, as tribute (minhah), 217, 
226, 236, 240 sq., 448 (cf. First- 
fruits, Tithes); as communion 
(zebah, shelem), 239 sq., 243, 265, 
269 sqq., 312 sqq., 346 sqq.; as 
piacular or propitiatory (hattath, 
asham), 399 sqq.; substitutionary, 
422 

Sacrifices, Levitical, 215; Cartha- 
ginian, 237; Arabian (Saracenic), 
see Nilus 

Sacrificers, young men as, 417 

Sacrificial feast, involves slaughter, 
224; social character of, 254, 284; 
view of life underlying, 257; 
ethical significance of, 265, 271 ; 
older than family meal, 279 sq. 

Saduk (Amarna Letters), ‘“ loyal,” 
664 

Safaya, 459 

Sahh, Arabic, 98 

Salambo or Salambas, etymology of, 
412 

Salm, in proper names, 79 


Salman, worship of Moharric at, 364 

Salt, in sacrifice, 220; bond of, 270, 
667n. ; oath by, 479; strewing of 
ground with, 454, 594 

‘* Salvation,” 661 

Samora (acacia), magic use of gum of 
the, 133, 185, 427 

Sanbulos, huntsman Baal of, 50 

Sanctuaries, how constituted, 115 sq., 
206, 436; physical characters of, 
136, 155; in Arabia, 143 sqq. ; 
taboos affecting, 156 sqq. 

Sandan-Heracles, 632, 691 

Saracens. See Nilus 

Sardanapalus, 373, 632 

Satan, in Syriac legend, 442 

Satisfaction, 424 

Saturn, sacrifice to, 373. See Moloch 

Saturnalia, 592 

Satyrs (sétrim), 120, 441 

Saul, burning of, 372 

Scapegoats, 397, 422, 650, 652, 679 

Scriptures, the, defile the hands, 426, 
655 

S-d-k, meaning of the root, 655 sqq. ; 


name of a god, 661 sg.; social — 


origin, 665 

Seasons and sacrifice, 405 

Sétrim, 120, 441 

Selli, at Dodona, 4.84 

Semiramis legend, 199 n., 370 n., 
375 n. 

Semitic peoples, 1 ; meaning of word 
5,495; unity and homogeneity of 
race, 8 sqq.; geographical disper- 
sion of, 9; relation to Egypt, 496, 
500; alleged tendency of, to 
monotheism, 74, 526 

Sensuality and cruelty, 415 

Serpent-demons, 120, 133, 142 n. ; 
in springs, 168, 172 

Servant of the Lord, 629, 631, 654 

Set (Typhon), 468, 469, 690 

Seven wells, sanctity of, 181 sq. 

Sex of deities, 52, 58, 516 sqg.; of 
sacrificial victim, 298, 472 

Sexual intercourse, taboos on, 454, 
614, 640; ideas of general fertil- 
ity, 537, 613 

Shamash, sun-god, 516, 532 sq., 659, 
668 

Shé‘alkim, teetotal god, 575 

Shechem, oracular tree at, 196 

Sheep-Astarte, 310, 477 sq. 

Sheep, piacular sacrifice, 476 sq. 

Sheep-skin worn by sacrificers in 
Cyprus, 435, 473 


GENERAL INDEX 


Sheikh, religious duties of, 508, 522, 
559 

Sheikh Adi, valley of, 179 

Shelamim (sing. shelem) explained, 
237 

Shew- bread, 225 sq. 

Shoes, put off, 453, 687 

Shouting, sacrificial, 432 

Sicab, Arabic, 324 

Sicharbas, 374 

Sid, Sidon, 578 

Silat, Arabic, 50 

Siloam, 231 

Sin, moon-deity, 532 sq., 659 

Sin, notions of, 401, 406, 415, 645 
sq., 663 

Sin-offering, 216, 349; viewed as 
an execution, 423; Hebrew, 344, 
349 sq. ; sacrosanct, 350, 451 

Sinai, sanctity of, 118 

Skin of sacrifice, 435 sqq. ; as sacred 
dress, 436 sq., 467, 674 ; burial in, 


605 

Slaughter, private, forbidden, 286 ; 
of victim, by whom performed, 
417; requires consent of clan, 285; 
originally identical with sacrifice, 
234, 241, 307 

Slaves sleep beside the blood and the 
dung, 235; are tattoed, 619 

Slippers, sacred, 438 

Snakes, as objects of superstition, 
130, 442 

Society, religious, in antiquity. 28 


sq. 

Sofra, Arabic, 201 

Solidarity of gods and their worship- 
pers, 32, 504 sqq. 

Solomon, his altar at Jerusalem, 485; 
his pillars, 488 

Solwan, 323 . 

Sons of gods, 50, 446, 509, 545, 659, 
677 


** Soul,’ of food, ete., 556, 585 sq., 
596, 602, 624 sq., 678; how pre- 


served, 634 sq.; prayer for 
Panammu’s, 545; for a weli’s, 
596 
Species, gods, etc., 445, 540, 
686 


Spiritual ideas, in early Egypt, 665 
n.; and material, 556, 676 sqq. ; 
as a transmutation, 618; as vital- 
izing, 682, 685 

Spoils of war, how divided, 459 szq., 
637 


Spring festivals. See Nisan 


715 


Springs, sacred, 135 sq.; bathing in, 
168, 184. See Waters 

Sprinkling of blood, 337, 344 s¢., 
43] 

Stag sacrifice at Laodicea, 409 sq., 
466 sq. 

Stars thought to live, 134 sq. ; cults 
of, 542 

State, the, and religion, 32 sqq. 

Stigmata, 334 

Stones, sacred, 200 sqq., 568 sqq. ; 
origin of, 210; daubed with blood, 
201, 205; stroked with the hand, 
80, 205, 233; anointed, 232, 582 ; 
at Bethel, 203; ordeal by, 212; 
and anthropomorphic religion, 
571 

Strangers, protected, 75 sq. ; special 
resort to, 602, 616 n. 4 

Strangling, of victim, 343; execu- 
tion by, 418 

Stroking, salutation by, 80, 205, 
233, 322, 461 ; ritual, 571 sq. 

Stygian waters, in Syrian desert, 
169, 180 

Substitution of animals for human 
victims, 366; doctrine of, 421 sqq. 

Sun-gods, 649 sq., 669, 672. See 
Shamash 

Supernatural, savage views of the, 
134 sqq., 441 

Supreme or Great Gods, 529 sqq., 
540, 586, 668, 686 

Survivals, 442, 444 

Swine, holy or unclean, 153. 448 ; 
forbidden food to all Semites, 218 ; 
as mystic sacrifice, 290, 291, 621 ; 
as piacula, 351, 475 

Swine-god (Adonis), 411, 475 

Symbols, divine, 166 sqq.; phallic, 
212, 456 

Symposia, 627 

Syncretism of later Semitic heathen- 
ism, 15, 471 

Systems, conception of, 28; meth- 
odology of, 507, 594 ; social, con- 
trasted with individualism, 528 ; 
and isolated data, 531; of re- 
strictions, 637 ; evolution of, 669 ; 
no real closed, 507, 525, 565, 
591, 685, cf. lv sg. See Groups, 
Individual 


Taabbata Sharran, 128, 261 

Tabala, oracle at, 47; sacred gazelles 
at, 466 

Table of the gods, 201 


716 


= 


Taboo explained, 152 sq., 164; re- 
lation of, to holiness, 446 sqq. ; 
removed by washing, 451; on 
sexual intercourse, 454 sqq., 481 ; 
suicidal taboos, 640. See Mana 

Taboos affecting the sanctuary, 156 
sq., 159 sqq. 

Tahlil, 279, 340, 431 sq. 

T'aim, in theophorous names, 80 

Taima, 248 n., 587 

Ta’lab, 791 

Tamar, 612 

Tammuz. 

Tanib, 531 

Tanith (Artemis, Dido), 56, 374; 
pillars of, 208, 456, 477 sq. ; with 
the face of Baal, 478 

T'anjis, Arabic, 448 

Tao, 656 sq., 662, 665 

Tarpeian Rock, executions at, 419 

Tarsus, annual festival at, 373, 
377 

Tattooing, 334, 619, 687 n. 

Tawaf, 340 

Taxation, ancient Hebrew, 245, 460 
Sq. 

Temple, at Jerusalem, attached to 
palace, 246; worship of second, 
215 sq. ; altars of, 378, 485 sqq. 

Temples, in Arabia, 102; above 
towns, 172; treasures at, 147; 
rock-hewn, 197 

Tenedos, sacrifice to Dionysus at, 
305, 474 

Terebinth, feast and fair of the, 177; 
at Mamre, burns and is not con- 
sumed, 193 

Theanthropic victim, 409 sq., 412 

Theodulus, son of Nilus, 362 sqq. 

Theophany, constitutes a sanctuary, 
115, 119, 436, 450, 633 

Theophorous proper names, 42, 45 
sq., 67 sq., 79 sq., 108 sq. 

Therapeute, 303 

Thirst, 235, 580 

Thorayya, wells called, 182 

Thotmes, the name, 509 sq. 

Throne, worshipped, 562 

Tiberias, seven wells at, 182 

Tinnin, Arabic, 176 

Tithes, 245 sqq., 587; in old Israel, 
used for public feasts, 252; 
tribute and, 458 

Tobit and Sarah, story of, 615 sq. 


See Adonis 


1 Explained to mean “‘ibex” (MVAQG. 
1923, ii. 69). 


GENERAL INDEX 


Todas, sacred buffaloes of the, 299, 
431, 600 

Tonsures, 325 sqq. 

Tophet, 372; etymology of word, 
377 

Totemism, importance of, xxxix, 
lix; defined, 124 sqq., 535 n. 1; 
in Semitic domain, 137 sqq., 288 
sqq.. 443; in Mohammedan 
Nigeria, 539, 541 n.; in Egypt 
(q.v.); causes of disappearance, 
355 sq., cf. 445, 541; effect on 
domestication of animals, 601 ; 
its re-emergence, 629; its rudi- 
mentary character, 670, 683; in 
what sense “ primitive,” 539 sq., 
541, 599, 671, 683; ‘‘ religion ” 
or “‘ magic,”’ xl, 598; is economic, 
628; not anthropomorphic, 670 ; 
clan or local, not tribal, 668 

Totems, relation to the jinn, 538 
sqq.; the animal-names, 622, 
and their alleged origin, 624; 
men and totem of same substance, 
506, 547, 585, 624 n., 677; dead 
rejoin, 605, 675; apparent equal- 
ity of, and men, 511; unite the 
clan, 506; embodiments of power, 
677 n. 3; receive worship, xli; 
help in battle, 641 ; are imitated, 
676; ceremonies to control or 
multiply, 535, 598, 668, are per- 
formed in ‘sacred ’”’ state, 586, 
671; lives of, are sacred, 285; 
are eaten, 295, 405, 598; as first- 
fruits, 535, 586 

Touching, rites of. See Stroking 

Transcendence in Semitic religion, 
48, 194, 563; divine, 685; and 
immanence complementary, 553, 
564, 662, cf. xxxvi; and im- 
manence in primitive religion, 
553, 565, 668, 684 

Transference, of evil, etc., 64:7 

Transformation myths, 88 sqg., 191, 
288 

Treasures at temples, 147, 197 

Trees, viewed as animate or demon- 
iac, 1382; sacred, 185, 559 aq. ; 
fiery apparitions at, 193, 562 ; 
oracles from, 194; deities trans- 
formed into, 191; how  wor- 
shipped, 195; protected at sanc- 
tuaries, 159 sq. 


Trespass-offering (asham), 216, 399 


Pe aay 
Tribal religion in Arabia, 38 sqq. 


a eS 


.f. a 


r—~ 


a 
i 


GENERAL INDEX 


717 


Tribesman, sacrifice of, 362 

Tribute, sacred, 245; in Arabia, 111, 
458 sqq. ; on commerce, 458 

Troezen, sacred laurel at, 350; Apollo 
of, 360 

Troglodytes, described by Agathar- 
chides, 296, 338 

Truce, 276 

‘True, Truth, ideas of, 655 sqq. 

Tyche, 467, 508 

Typhoeus, 134 

Typhon (Set), 468 sq. 

Tyre, Ambrosian rocks, 193 


Umm el-Ghéth, 581 

‘** Uncircumcised ”’ orchard, 159 n., 
463, 583 

Unclean land means a foreign land, 
93 

Unclean things in magic, 448 

Uncleanness, 425, 446 sqq., 548 sq. ; 
rules of, 153, 449; infectious, 446 
sqq. See Impurity 

Unction, unguents, ritual of, 233 sq., 
383 sq. 

Undifferentiated thought and so- 
ciety, 89, 107, 506, 590 sq., 649, 
657, 678, 683, 685 

Unguents, 383 sq., 426 sq. 

Unity, mystical experience of, 666 ; 
after disunity, 592 sq., 664 sqq. ; 
of gods and worshippers, 32, 503, 
549, 594 

Universalism in religion, 268, 593, 
669 ; its effects, 81 

Unshod, 687 

Usous, legend of, 203; relation to 
Esau, 467, 508 

Usufruct, 639 

Usurtu, 687 

Uz. the same as ‘Aud ? 43 


Varuna, 529, 534 sq., 657, 662, 667 sq. 

Vegetable offerings, 219 sqq. 

Vegetarianism, primitive, belief in, 
300, 303 ; Philo Byblius on, 308 

Venus, Arabian, orgies of, 363; 
planet, see Lucifer 

Vermin, sacrifice of, 293, 357 

Vestments. See Garments 

Victim, a sacred animal, 287 sqq. ; 
male preferred, 298; by whom 
slain, 417; effigy substituted for, 
410; head of, not eaten, 379; 
used as charm, 381 ; should offer 
itself spontaneously, 306, 309, 


602; theanthropic, 409, 412; 
cast from a precipice, 371, 418, 
419; new-born, sacrifice of, 368, 
407, 462; cut in twain, 480 sq. ; 
must be pure, 620 

** Virgin land,” 537, 583 

Virgin-mother, at Petra and Elusa, 
56 sq. 

Vital “‘ parts,” 381, 634, 674 

Volcanoes, superstitions about, 134 

Votive offerings, 214, 460 

Vows, hair-offering in, 332 ; taboos 
incidental to, 481 sqq. 

Vulture-god, 226, 579 

‘** Vultures, Stela of,’’ 570 


Wabar, Arabic, 112 

Wabr, 444, 625 

Wahb b. Monabbih, 185 

War opened and closed with sacri- 
fice, 401 sq., 491 sqq., 640 sq. 

Warriors, consecrated, 158, 402; 
taboos on, 158, 455, 482, 640 

Washing of garments, 451 ; of head, 
485; ritual, 646 sq. 

Wasm, 480 

Water, living, 135, 173, 556, 558; 
ordeals by, 179 sqqg.; property 
in, 104; poured into sacred well, 
199; as libation, 23]’sq., 580; in 
lustration, 368 

Waters, healing, 183, 557; sacred, 
166 sqqg. ; oracles from, 176; dis- 
coloured at certain seasons, 174 ; 
blood of gods in, 174; gifts cast 
into, 177; Stygian, 169, 180 

Waterspout personified, 176 

‘“ Way,” the, 658, 662, 665 n. 

Welt, ancestral sheikh, 508, 546; 
complex traditions of, 546; 
female, 521 n.; as ‘‘ fathers,” 514, 
557; local gods, 528, 533, 546, 
ef. xli; sanctity of tomb, 543 sq., 
572; trees, 560 

Wells, sacred, 167; ritual of, 176 
sq. ; ownership of, 105; guardian 
of, 169, 557; song to, 183 n., 559 

Were-wolf, 367; in Hadramaut, 88 

Widow, secluded as impure, 448 ; 
purification of, in Arabia, 422, 
428; shaving of, 619 

Wild beasts, dread of, 122, 131 

Will of the god, doing the, 682 

Wine, libations of, 220, 230; re- 
ligious abstinence from, 485, 575 ; 
wine and ecstasy, 575 

Witches, trial by water, 179 


718 


Wociuf, 340, 342 

Wolf Apollo at Sicyon, 226 

Women, exchange of, 612 ; symbol- 
ise fertility and transmission, 516; 
virgin soil, 537; may not eat the 
holiest things, 234, 299, 379; do 


not eat with men, 279, 595. See 
Marriage 

Yabrih (mandrake), 442 

Yaghuth (Lion-god), 37, 43, 226, 


509. See Yeush 

Yahweh, in names denoting kin- 
ship, 510; bisexual, 517; and 
supernatural birth, 513; and first- 
born (q.v.); marriage relation to 
Israel, 514, 610; ethical relation, 
319; in the story in Ex. iv., 609; 
in Gen. xxxii., 610; “testing” 
of, 564; and Elohim, 512; his 


GENERAL INDEX 


“ righteousness,” 54, 565, 660. sqq. ; 
transcendence, 194, 565, 662 
god of a confederation, 319 
667; his sovereignty, 66, 75, 81 
universality, 512, 669 ae 

Yeaning time, 407, 462 sth 
Yeush, god-name, 43. See Yaghuth t 


Zagharit, 432, 491 

Zakkiré, Syriac, 198; S679 [ae 

Zamzam, holy well, 167 sq., 557 

Zamzummim, 567 

Zébah, zebahim, meaning of the wo: 
222, 237, 578 

Zeus Asterius, 310 

Zeus Bomos, 571 

Zeus Lyczus, 366 n. 5, 631 

Zeus Madbachos, 562 

Zoroastrianism, 529, 557, 


646, 6 
sq., 658 sq. 


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